


The Mannequin Gallery

by marrieddorks



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: (but do not tell him that), Alternate Universe - Fashion & Models, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Auguste is still dead sorry, Damen is a social media influencer, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fashion & Couture, Fluff, Laurent is a model, M/M, Slow Burn, Social Media, Typical Regent Grossness, World Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:22:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 62,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23625325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marrieddorks/pseuds/marrieddorks
Summary: If things would have gone the way they were supposed to, Damen and Laurent would have never met.  But things didn't go the way they were supposed to, not at all, and their meeting ended up being the equivalent of skydiving with a malfunctioning parachute.  Damen tried not to complain.  After all, he was now living his dream; he was travelling with his best friend without having to make sure their "I"s were dotted and their "T"s crossed.  And, sure, Laurent was difficult to work with, to work for, but he was also great to look at and they made it work well as long as they were anywhere but in Paris.  But when Laurent's past begins to cause present-day problems, Damen finds out those difficulties Laurent constantly displays were a bit more warranted than he could have ever imagined. And Laurent?  Laurent finds out the truth -- and finds out how to smile.
Relationships: Damen/Laurent (Captive Prince)
Comments: 188
Kudos: 228





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hi, guys! so -- this fic is my baby. i've been fiddling with the idea a bit over a year now and i'm finally debuting it in all its mistakes and all my love for it. before i ramble too long about anything else i feel like i should put a disclaimer here in saying that: this is by no means near finished. i have a plot and major plot points written out in detail and i have the first three chapters completed (prologue doesn't count as a chapter), but that is it. i know how a lot of people feel about WIPs (i feel that way in many cases with WIPs too) and i just want to get that out there for anyone who does want to wait until it's a finished product.
> 
> now! i fear the summary makes this sound really lighthearted and, while it is and will be (i hope!) it is also going to delve into some darkness, namely in canonical captive prince fashion of pedophilia and rape and molestation. i'm not sure it that will be mentioned or if it will be described or anything, but i feel like that needs to be said for anyone looking for a fluff-fest.

Damen knew what people thought about him. Damen knew that people thought he wasn’t living up to his full potential. Damen knew that people thought he was relying too much on his ‘fifteen minutes of fame.’ Damen knew that people thought he’d be left with nothing in five years. Hell, he had heard it enough from his own father, from his brother, from his ex-girlfriend who was now his brother’s fiancé. Nik had heard it all too.

But Damen knew a lot of other things too. Damen knew that ‘lucky’ didn’t even begin to describe his current life and Damen knew that one wasn’t meant to look a gift horse, or lucky horse, in the mouth. Damen knew, after all his experience, how to cultivate fleeting moments into events to be remembered. Damen knew, after all his experience, that networking was by far the most useful career tool. Most importantly, Damen knew he’d never be happy sitting at the head of a boardroom table or behind a desk in an office eight hours a day. And since the opportunity to do what he did had landed in his lap, he knew he would have been a fool to not take it and run with it. Even knowing what people thought, Damen didn’t regret it, not once.

Still, despite what Damen knew, it didn’t make his brain stop replaying every argument he’d had with his family in the past or, in this instance, about an hour ago via phone call. It didn’t matter how many times Nik told him every harsh word out of their mouths was all out of worry on his father’s part, all out of jealousy on his brother Kastor’s part, all out of regret and envy on Kastor’s fiancé’s part. Each argument always left Damen’s head spinning.

It took the chill of the mountain air rushing against his face to pull him back to reality. He and Nik had been in Cortina d’Ampezzo, a ski town in northern Italy, for just over a week. Today was their last day and they were using it to actually enjoy themselves as opposed to creating content. It’s why they were hitting their favorite ski slopes one last time and why there was cold wind ruddying Damen’s cheeks and why specks of snow were hitting his goggles, leaving them streaked with condensation.

Finally where the ground began to level out, Damen turned his legs, shifting them to just the right angle, before he allowed himself to slide and slow down to a gentle stop. Everything felt wobbly under his feet.

“Quit thinking about it.”

Damen looked up to see Nik who had been right behind him on the course. Nik was already pulling at his goggles, at his hat, and he shook his hair free of both bindings. His nose was red. Giving Damen a pointed look to back up his words, he waited a beat before moving to unbuckle his feet from the skis.

“I’m not thinking about it,” Damen said, copying Nik’s movements.

“Yes, you are. You almost veered off course back there.”

“But I didn’t.”

“You should really let me photograph you when you’re like this,” Nik said. “We can do a whole thing, call it ‘The Real Damen.’ Let everyone know you’re not always big smiles and no shirts, that sometimes you’re a pouty loser.”

“I’m not a pouty loser,” Damen argued, face screwing up with the insult.

“See,” Nik started quickly, snapping and pointing. “That face. Let me take a picture of that face and we’ll show off the human side of you.”

“You’re a dick,” Damen said. “And what do you mean ‘human side’ of me?”

Their feet crunched across the snow as they made their way back to the ski lodge they’d grown fond of in their week here. They’d grown so fond of it that they made sure to take plenty of pictures outside and inside of the place, of the food and drink offered, of the cute-as-a-button ski instructor who had freaked out upon seeing Damen the first time and who had shown them all the tricks to having a successful ski-filled week.

Just before walking in, Nik clapped Damen on the shoulder and said, “You know what I was thinking about while we were skiing? I was thinking about how you’re going to be lucky to even get a pity invite to your own brother’s wedding.”

“You’re a dick,” Damen repeated, but he was laughing. That was something they were both glad about.

Beyond their dinner reservations that night, Damen and Nik had no other plans for their last day in Cortina and so they spent it wandering aimlessly as opposed to how they wandered about the other seven days, like men on a mission. There wasn’t an urgent need to get content out given how their system worked. They were almost always two weeks ahead, minus the times that they needed to post in real time, though whether that came from posting on Damen’s Instagram story or from carefully, but quickly, edited shots Nik completed in double-time depended entirely on the ‘what’ and the ‘who.’

For the next few hours, they meandered around the streets doing the fun things that inspired them to do just this all those years ago. They ran inside local shops, seeing things that weren’t found in every store across the globe, they took in the talented musicians all along the streets – even in the snow – singing heart-pulling melodies, plucking at echoing strings, pounding on drums that were felt in one’s soul, and they ate so much finger food, making themselves nearly sick. Around them were the Dolomites, larger than life and covered in snow, and sometimes Damen looked up at them and remembered how cold it had been up there, how thin the air was. He also looked up and thought about how awesome those pictures were going to look once Nik got around to editing this stop.

By seven o’clock they were back at their hotel, the Hotel Miramonti, which was made famous for being in a James Bond film ( _For Your Eyes Only_ (1981) starring Roger Moore). For their final night, final photos, and for that once-in-a-lifetime thing that had been the inspiration for two teenagers’ bucket list, they decided to dress up for dinner in the best suits they could find in such a town and live it like they were James Bond...because you could do that when you were them.

“Do I look like I’m ready to fight international crime?” Damen asked, stepping out while artfully checking his cufflinks.

“You look like a tool,” Nik deadpanned.

“That’s at least the fifth time you’ve been mean to me today” Damen said. He swiped their room card, tucking it into his black leather wallet, and elbowed Nik as they exited the room. It was cold outside in the mountains in January and Damen was grateful for the coat he’d gotten here as well. He shoved his hands into his pockets, watching as air left from his mouth and rose to form clouds in front of his face.

“Only the fifth time? I’m slacking then,” Nik said. They walked in silence, letting the feeling of being in this place wash over them. Cortina was lively at night. Its restaurants and shops were full of laughter and song, people warming their hands near fires and their blood with alcohol, and Damen wondered how many of these people came here every year and how many were first time visitors, equally as awed by the beauty as he was.

Nik was a step behind him, had been a step behind him all day really, and Damen tried not to dwell on it; but, given how his own conversation with his family had gone, he couldn’t help but think about Nik’s own. He was definitely acting like something was wrong, but he hadn’t said a word about any of it.

“Did your dad give you a hard time again?” Damen finally asked.

Nik huffed out a laugh, that familiar one that said everything he didn’t have to. Still, he said “Not as hard a time as your own gave you.”

A car full of young women drove by them and three of the girls had gloved hands extended out the windows, braving the cold for a ‘hello’ at two well-dressed strangers on the street and Damen, ever the charmer, yelled his own ‘hello’ back at them. They laughed as though he said something awfully funny.

There was a small bar just up the road that was clearly the place to be in Cortina on a Thursday evening. The line, careening out the door, was bubbling with impatience, excitement, and the desire for a packed room of body heat to fight the cold. Damen and Nik both watched as a couple talked animatedly to one another before she moved in, pressing what was clearly an ice-cold hand on her boyfriend’s forearm, making him jump. She laughed and he laughed and the guy behind them mocked them both.

“If this place we’re going to ends up being like that one restaurant back home, we should stop by here afterward and get something good,” Damen said.

“I still maintain that one place is lying about their Michelin star,” Nik said as agreement.

“When you’re a Michelin star restaurant with a three-star Yelp rating, something’s up,” Damen said. “Maybe we should change up everything and talk about food instead. We get real heated about food, I think it’d be great.”

Nik hummed and Damen turned, just so, to look at him. He had his phone in hand, eyes scanning the screen like a teenager waiting for someone to text them back. Damen hit him with an elbow, watching as Nik fumbled once to keep his phone from landing on the snow-wet ground.

“What’s up?”

“Nothing,” Nik said, pocketing his phone.

Damen shushed him. “You’ve been weird all day.”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Yeah, you have.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Nik,” Damen huffed.

Nik sighed deeply, his chest rising high underneath the fitted suit jacket, and he looked up to the sky, watching the cold air moved by the disturbance of warmth.

“Look,” he said after a moment’s pause. “I have something I want to talk to you about. It’s something I should have talked to you about weeks ago, but no time seemed right.”

Damen stopped right in the middle of the walkway they were on, but the few people anywhere behind them just walked on by as though not bothered by the brief interruption in their own journeys. “Spill.”

“No, it can wait until we’re on our way to –” Nik trailed.

“Well, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about at dinner. But let’s talk about this first,” Damen said.

“We need to get on the same page for where we’re going next,” Nik argued. “You know we’re a mess if we don’t have at least ideas in place before we get somewhere.”

“I know, but if whatever this is has you stressed, we should talk about it now.”

“Damen, come on, this is the first dinner we’ve had in seven days that’s not going to be cold by the time we eat it. Let’s just enjoy this, figure out our plans for –”

“I’ve got a few ideas.”

“Right. And then we’ll talk.”

The doors were opened for them because it was that kind of place and they were greeted by a too-gorgeous hostess and an equally stunning coat check attendant who both smiled at them in the dim lighting of the restaurant. They were led to their seats, the way between tables spacious, and just as they were about to sit, Damen put a hand on Nik’s forearm.

“Hang on,” he started. “You’re not bailing on me anytime soon, are you?”

Nik, with his lifetime of patience, didn’t roll his eyes, but the desire to do so was there.

“I knew it,” Damen said with the confidence of someone acting like they had it all figured out.

They ordered wine because they were in Italy and how could they not, and every item on the menu was so tempting Damen spent a good twenty minutes struggling to decide on just one. He decided to voice that fact out loud.

“I know that, at this rate, we’re going to be until the sun rises, but I could genuinely eat everything.”

“Well, choose one of the everything you could eat and get on with telling me about our next destination,” Nik said, having long decided on a nice risotto.

Taking Nik’s words to heart, Damen spent another minute or so finalizing a decision before landing on a bollito misto to pair well with the Barbera wine they had already drained a bottle of.

“Alright. I know we’ve been talking about exploring the more eastern parts of Europe, but given that I’d actually like to have the time to research it and to also not go there in the endings of winter, I’ve decided on a new place in a familiar country,” Damen explained. “Berlin.”

“Berlin?”

“Yes. We’ve spent time in Frankfurt and did that tour of Rothenburg a few years back, but it’s been some time since we’ve been to Germany and Berlin is full of things to do. I could also really do with some of that schnitzel we had that one time.”

“You don’t even remember the schnitzel,” Nik reminded him. “You were so drunk because we were there during Oktoberfest and you were competing against veteran Germans at their own holiday. I _told_ you the schnitzel was good.”

“Well,” Damen started with a laugh, “then I’d like to try the schnitzel and remember it this time!”

They were about to start a meaningless bit of banter, something they always did, like brothers who couldn’t keep their mouths closed and their thoughts to themselves, when Nik’s phone rang, causing a few glances from other patrons in the restaurant. It wasn’t uncommon for them both to get a slew of phone calls throughout the day. They had plenty of family, friends, and acquaintances all around the world to keep them busy, and none of those categories included the times they got called for interviews or received offers from brands to advertise in their posts. When they were out like this though, they were both pretty good at giving their eyes and brains a rest from social media so Damen was surprised to see Nik’s hand jump to his phone as though it was a lifeline, or a ransom.

“I’ve got to take this,” he said after remembering to breathe, and he didn’t wait to get a ‘No problem!’ or ‘What’s going on?’ from Damen. Instead he quickly and politely stood from the table and excused himself out the door that led to the currently empty outdoor sitting area.

Damen couldn’t stop himself from leaning forward in his seat like a nosy ya-ya watching the neighbors from her open kitchen window. It was dark out and the lighting of the outdoor seating area was minimal given nobody was going to brave the cold just for dinner and a view; it made it hard to see Nik who was swathed in an already-dark suit. Still, Damen watched, hoping to see something akin to relief or peace or excitement or something good take over his best friend’s face and replace the anxiety that had been there as they had talked on their walk to the restaurant.

For the first few minutes, Damen, continuously sipping on his wine and munching on the bread sitting on the table, could just see him through the throng of people between their table and the door, through the smaller windows of the door itself, through the decorative greenery falling into perfect place just beyond the entrance. Nik was standing there, back to the window, with one arm up and holding the phone to his ear and the other crossed over his chest, hand clenching at the fabric of his newly rented suit. In the time it took Damen to order another drink and wait for its arrival, Nik moved, his walk and talk taking him out of Damen’s eyesight. So, Damen continued to sip on his drink, waiting.

And waiting. And waiting. And ordering another drink. And waiting. And waiting.

It was safe to say Damen’s head was appropriately fuzzy when Nik came back, goosebumps on the exposed skin of his wrists. Damen watched him carefully, looking for familiar signs of something good, but the only thing Damen could recognize was a thrumming anxiety he hadn’t seen since Nik hit the decline button on his acceptance to university all those years ago.

“What was that about?” Damen asked. The words felt heavy – no, furry – on his tongue.

When Nik finally looked up at him and took in the almost-emptied wine glass, he physically shook his head no, as though telling himself instead of Damen. “I’ll tell you later.”

“Are you sure?” Damen asked. The tablecloth was moving with the shaking of Nik’s leg.

“Yeah, it can wait.”

Even though Nik said it could wait, it clearly couldn’t. The remainder of dinner was tense. It felt weighed down by the phone call that had Nik all discombobulated. Damen had tried for conversation, had tried explaining plans for a stopover in Germany, but he was drunk, and things were coming out jumbled and Nik was only responding with disinterested sounding hums, so Damen stopped trying. He opted for more wine instead.

The walk back to the hotel was even worse than the remainder of dinner. Nik seemed to do everything he could to keep with the day’s pattern of staying one step behind Damen at all times and Damen was so focused on walking in a straight line that he couldn’t keep the energy about him to care, not until they were back at the hotel and attempting a climb up the staircase to their room. 407.

Damen tried swiping the room card once, twice, and he was too uncoordinated having exhausted all the energy on walking. Nik gently pried the card from Damen’s hands and, once inside, beelined straight for the bathroom, hands pulling at the suit that felt sweltering in northern Italy’s chilly January weather, and Damen sat down on one of the beds, fingers fumbling with the fine laces of his shoes. It seemed like an eternity until Nik came back out, the whole scene nearly identical to the one at dinner, but Damen had had time to come up with something to say this time, even if his brain was still fuzzy – furry? – with Barbera wine.

“Are you breaking up with me?” he asked, the laugh in his voice unavoidable with the wording, but the honest fear behind the words tangible.

“What?” Nik asked, incredulously. He looked a lot more comfortable, dressed as they usually did in shorts and a thin t-shirt. It was his old football tee from school, the number on the back almost completely faded and the lion of their team name not near as ferocious as it had once been.

“Did your family finally get to you? Did you finally get a real job? Are you going to be a salary man now? Are you going to wear a suit like the one tonight all the time?”

There was a beat, then two, and then Nik was laughing, the sound so wonderful after hours of strained silence. And it was such an infectious laugh – though whether that was because the situation was actually funny, because it was late in the evening, or because Damen was still drunk, he wasn’t sure – that Damen started to laugh too. They laughed so loud and so long that someone in a room next to them banged twice on the wall, shouting something indiscernibly Italian through their laughter.

“You really think I could give up all of this for a desk job back home?” Nik asked, though they both knew the question was rhetorical. They had talked about it enough in their travels for it to be too familiar a topic. “I’m not going anywhere. But you might after I tell you about that phone call.”

“Try me.”

Nik sat down across from him on the other bed, leg shaking like it had been at the restaurant. He looked like a man standing at the gallows, allowing himself to be subjected to his fate. And Damen was quite confused and continued to be confused even as Nik started to speak.

“Do you remember three months ago when we were in Morocco and I woke you up at three in the morning and dragged you out to take pictures until after the sun had risen?”

“I definitely remember that because I was not happy. You didn’t even let me get coffee.”

“Do you remember how you told me that that whole thing was really weird and the day after you said it was even weirder that I spent over twelve hours going through all the photos and getting them edited the way they needed to be?”

Damen hummed. “Yeah, you’re not usually that anal about it all.” Nik sighed heavily at him.

“I was finishing my portfolio to send to,” Nik sighted again, “well, a lot of places. Places in Paris. For Paris Fashion Week.”

The raising of Damen’s eyebrow said everything he didn’t have to and Nik put his hands out in an almost defensive manner, face mimicking Damen’s own of surprise, as though he was surprised by himself for saying it, for doing it.

“I know I’ve never shown interest in photographing the fashion world, but the opportunity can’t be overlooked. Especially if I want to stand out from the thousands, or millions, of social media photographers out there. I saw Lazar, that French photographer we ran into last year, talking about it and the impulsivity hit me.”

“You’re never impulsive,” Damen said.

“But I was.” Nik stood and moved to the window, eyes searching the barely illuminated night of Cortina. “I spent a day thinking about how I was submitting my type of work to a bunch of snobs in the fashion industry who don’t care about anything we do. Then I forgot about it. We were busy enough and it wasn’t the most important thing to be focused on, so it fell to the back of my mind. It wasn’t until I saw Lazar say Silversio had called him that I started to try and brush it off as a lost opportunity, but two days later I got an email from a man named Estienne asking if I would be available for a phone call. A phone call from Etoile whose owner called at dinner and offered me an opportunity to come shoot for them.”

“Wait, which brand is Etoile?” Damen asked.

“You’ve seen them before. They were big in the news about two years ago for a floral design they did for their fall collection. They’re also the only all-male modeling and clothing agency in Paris,” Nik said.

“And they called you? They want you to come to Paris and photograph their models and their clothes during the,” Damen struggled for a moment to find a good comparison, “fashion Olympics?”

“Calm down,” Nik said, but he was smiling; he couldn’t help smiling. “Because this time is such a big deal for all the brands and because they get so many applications, they’ve called ten photographers back. They want us all to come to Paris early and attend a few photoshoots with their runway models. They want us to get to know them, to familiarize ourselves with the models and the fabrics. The owner says he believes photography is best when the subjects are familiar. After that, they’re going to choose four photographers to stay for fashion week.”

“Nik,” Damen said once. “Nik! This is amazing, this is –” he got up, coming up next to Nik at the window, and smacked him hard in the arm. “Why they hell didn’t you tell me sooner? Why didn’t you want to tell me tonight?”

“I didn’t want to tell you when I was putting it together because I didn’t want it to be a thing. You get intense about anything that could remotely be viewed as a competition and I didn’t want you getting caught up in something that, honestly, I thought had little opportunity to be a success. And then tonight I was just nervous for the call and then it happened, and I didn’t know how to tell you.”

“You didn’t know how to tell me you got offered the opportunity of a lifetime?” Damen asked incredulously.

“No, I didn’t know how to tell you that I’m going to be in Paris for at least a whole month,” Nik said. “I know you can do some of your own stuff, but also most of your ‘stuff’ is you doing shirtless workouts on your story. And while that keeps your followers, you’re a shit photographer and a whole month without new content might be too long. I was going to wait until I could contact a few people who could maybe meet up with you in a few places and be temporary fill-ins for me.”

“Dude,” Damen said, starting to laugh again. He smacked Nik’s shoulder even harder this time. “I don’t know what you’re talking about because I’m not going anywhere without you anytime soon.”

Nik’s eyebrows furrowed close together, wrinkling his forehead and squinting his eyes, and he looked ridiculous. “But it’s going to be an entire month, Damen. I don’t think you’ve stayed in the same place longer than a week since you came down with the flu while we were in Wales.”

“I’ve never had a reason to stay in one place longer than a week. But to miss out on seeing you around a bunch of highbrow models and their high maintenance lives? I’d regret that the rest of my life.”

It was Nik’s turn to smack Damen in the shoulder. His hit was harder than any of Damen’s had been, but Damen didn’t even flinch. He smiled, the smile of a proud brother that just watched his own kin graduate or a father having taught his child to ride a bicycle, and it made Nik turn away from him to hide his own smile.

“Besides, I think Paris has plenty to offer us for a month. I’m all about once in a lifetime opportunities and front row seats at Paris Fashion Week seems like one of those, even if I don’t quite get it. And who knows, Nik,” Damen said, getting Nik’s attention back on him. “It’s the city of lights, the city of love.” He waggled his brows. “Maybe we’ll finally get you a girlfriend and you can stop saying photography is your only love.”

Nik smacked him again.

Surprisingly, Nik fell asleep first just an hour later. It gave Damen time to come down from the wine, to let the chill from the room sober him up, and he laid there, letting his mind wander freely and his eyes get heavy when two far too sobering thoughts hit him at the same time.

Reaching under his own head, Damen pulled at the pillow and flung it with perfect precision so it hit Nik in the face with a resounding thwack, making Nik yelp and snuffle with a startle.

“Wha—?”

“Are we going to Berlin tomorrow or not?” Damen asked. “We never decided.”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Nik said, definitely half-asleep and thinking of nothing but falling back to complete-sleep.

“Hey.” Damen threw another pillow with the exact same perfect precision.

“Damen, I swear to god,” Nik grumbled into the pillow that was now on top of his face.

“I’m mad at you.”

“About?”

“You’re doing something our families would consider worthwhile now,” Damen said. “This goes way beyond social media. Now my dad’s going to call me going ‘Why can’t you be more like Nik? Why don’t you have any skills beyond standing for pictures? Why do you insist on shaming the family name?’”

Nik was laughing. “Go to sleep, Damen.”

Damen was laughing too.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, all! thank you so much for the wonderful comments on chapter 1. it's meant the world and i'm very excited to share chapter two with you! 
> 
> on a quick life note, school has gotten a little crazy, mostly in that my university has shut down permanently and i have one semester left. but! they're working with us to sort things out so i'm staying hopeful things will go as smoothly as they can.
> 
> hope everyone is safe and well <3

“You can practically smell the croissants already,” Damen said as they adjusted their carry-ons over their shoulders and entered terminal 2D of the Charles de Gaulle Airport.

The flight from Berlin to Paris had been two hours long, just long enough for Damen to feel the slightest ache in his legs, and the stretch of walking them to the baggage claim felt refreshing. While Damen talked and chattered, Nik was quiet next to him. His eyes were taking in the bright red of the carpet, the arched glass ceiling, and the hundreds of people surrounding them, some so close they all kept bumping shoulders. None of them lost their stride. Damen wondered if the red of the carpet reminded Nik of the pictures he had been showing Damen on the plane, pictures of past Etoile fashion shows. Red seemed to be one of their favorite colors.

Despite his silence about all _this_ during their stopover in Berlin, Nik had clearly been doing his research in preparation for Paris. Once they had settled into their seats on the plane and the pilot had announced they could unfasten their seatbelts, Nik had pulled out his laptop and said with an edge of excitement, “Do you want to see some of my favorite photos from Etoile’s past shows?”

It turns out, there was a whole lot more to fashion than Damen had ever given any attention to. His head told him _‘Duh, Damen, of course there’s a lot to fashion,’_ but it was as though the complete confirmation of that hadn’t hit him until he saw the pictures. Nik seemed to have come to the same realization just days earlier. It had been the main reason for his endless list of saved photos, some cropped and zoomed in to give attention to the embroidered sleeves, the silk waves of scarves, and the jackets all strewn with jewels that glittered differently in angles of light.

“I’m not used to having to pay attention to clothes,” Nik had said before closing the laptop and stuffing it back in its bag. “You barely own a shirt.”

Now, the closer they got to the baggage claim, the looser Damen’s muscles felt and the more that a new excitement settled in instead. It had been a long time since they had gone somewhere unknown to them. He voiced as much.

“I’m excited about it too,” Nik agreed. His eyes were taking in different things now, scanning the multitude of signs as they wandered and wandered down a seemingly-endless airport with no baggage claim in sight. “Though, to be honest, I don’t know how we’ve never been to Paris.”

“We’ve barely been to France while we’ve travelled,” Damen pointed out. “We’ve only ever been to Nice and I’m pretty sure we went there because we had been in western Italy all the week before.”

“Why haven’t we been here before now?” Nik asked. Without even a break in step, he turned and started another direction with one finger pointing at a welcome and needed ‘Baggage Claim →’ sign above a different area to their right.

Damen didn’t break his step either while he said, “Not sure. I think France has always been not far enough away from home and too close all at once. We couldn’t just take a long weekend here like we could with places close to Greece but it also didn’t seem worth it to plan a long trip here when we could plan a long trip over to the United States to go hiking by the Grand Canyon or to fly down to Australia and hold koalas, you know?”

There were too many people waiting at the baggage claim already, but this was familiar territory after years of travel. Patiently, Damen and Nik waited for their too many bags. Damen’s hands were in his pockets and he was rocking on his heels while listing off a few things he wanted to do while they were here.

“Surprisingly,” he started, “I haven’t planned all that much.”

“Really?” Nik asked, one eyebrow raised skeptically.

“Really. I figured it’d probably be best to wait until you find out your schedule. Can’t be making the boss-man angry,” Damen said. Nik rolled his eyes.

Right when Nik was about to come back with a retort, Damen felt a finger poke at his shoulder and turned around to a group of teens, each one with hearts in their eyes.

It wasn’t that uncommon for Damen to get recognized in public settings anymore. Hitting two million followers on Instagram would do that for a person. Luckily for all those that recognized him, he was an easy-going guy, hence him posing with the kids for the video they were filming on their phones. It was a quick thing; the five of them stood around Damen, his height dwarfing them by comparison, and they all – Damen included – smiled wide, all their pearly whites on display while they waved at the camera and the girl holding the phone moved her thumb up and down on the screen, zooming the camera in and out. After another minutes of giggles from the teens, they disappeared, no doubt to immediately go edit the footage, and Damen rejoined Nik to wait for sight of their bags.

“Oh, is the king done mingling with the commoners at last?” Nik mocked.

“Man, I think I’m getting too old for this social media thing,” Damen said, laughing a little. “They’re making a TikTok, or whatever. I thought that was only people dancing? Am I missing something?”

“You know we’ve never been good at keeping up with the trends,” Nik said. “And for guys who rely on social media for their way of living, it’s not the smartest thing we’ve done. Or not done.”

Their bags finally rolled out from behind the curtain of the carousel and Damen stepped forward to heft each bag over toward Nik. They both had two bags on the carousel. Nik had one for his clothes and whatnot while the other held an array of camera equipment. Damen’s, meanwhile, were filled with clothes, products from advertisers, and half of one suitcase was full of workout gear and tubs of preworkout and protein that Damen couldn’t go without. Luckily, a few years ago, they had invested in nice luggage sets that stacked together like puzzle pieces in order to make moving them easier. They also had USB ports in them so they could keep their phones charged at all times.

It was another maze to get to the exit. They got lost once, Damen got stopped by two boys who were also filming a TikTok, and Nik bought an overpriced water for their drive into town all before they finally found the main doors. The doors were thronged with people, with loved ones waiting for family and business moguls waiting for their called cars, and Damen and Nik were talking over the cacophony, so it was a miracle Damen saw what he saw.

“Nik?” Damen asked, pointing over to where a bunch of men in suits were standing, eyes scanning the crowds. In that crowd stood a guy with a sign that read Etoile in fancy script and had Nik’s name underneath.

The man was inconspicuous in appearance, his suit nice but not standout-in-the-crowd-nice. His hair was cropped and a standard shade of brown, he was short and a bit stocky, and the sunglasses on his face only drew attention to his unsmiling mouth. He looked completely average.

Nik turned to Damen and said, “They never said they were sending a car.”

They both approached the man, Nik the slightest bit more hesitant than Damen, and shouldered their way through the crowd until they could stand in front of him. Behind the sunglasses, they could see his eyes jump from Nik to Damen then back to Damen before he asked in accented English, “Are you Nik?”

“I am,” Nik said after a beat.

“My name is Jord. Etoile has sent for me to escort you to our head office before then taking you to your hotel. I have been informed that you may be tired from your journey and may wish to go directly to your hotel instead. That can be done as well.”

“I’m going to Etoile already?” Nik asked.

“The owner likes to make connections with his possible hires as soon as possible,” Jord said, moving to fold the sign up. Damen stopped him with a hand out and the man eyed him cautiously still behind dark glasses.

“Can I keep that?”

The man kept a cautious eye on Damen even as he handed the sign to him and Damen, feeling Nik’s gaze, said, “We have to document this, Nik.”

“Well, we’ve only just come from Berlin, so it wasn’t a long journey. I’d be glad to go right over,” Nik said in response to Jord, bringing the conversation back around. “Is that okay with you, Damen?”

“Absolutely.”

“Wonderful,” Jord said, sounding like it was anything but that. “Follow me, please.”

The car was just outside the main doors, surrounded by dark taxi cars, a few buses, and several drivers from phone apps. The car, however, wasn’t so much a car. It was a sleek black Rolls Royce instead, the true standout in a crowd like this. Damen raised both eyebrows appreciatively at it before sliding into the seat through the open back passenger door. Nik followed, a quieter kind of awe on his face, and Jord closed the door behind them before they heard and felt the luggage being loaded into the trunk.

“This is crazy, Nik,” Damen said. The interior of the car was all a soft black leather and there was plenty of room for the both of them to stretch their legs out, something that was no small feat for two men several inches over six feet tall.

“They sent a car,” Nik said. His right hand couldn’t stop touching the seat underneath him.

“And not some shitty car. They sent the nicest car we’ve ever sat in that wasn’t at an Italian car show,” Damen said.

Jord was getting in the driver’s seat now, sunglasses still firmly in place, and he adjusted the rearview mirror before asking, “Is there anything I can get the two of you before we leave?”

“I’m not exactly dressed for the occasion,” Nik said after a beat. The fact seemed to have just dawned on him, perhaps when he took in how his black joggers looked next to the car’s interior, and Damen was in no better shape with a pair of slide-on shoes and a baggy neon orange sweatshirt.

“It won’t be a problem,” Jord said and he started the car, the engine purring as it came to life. “As long as you know what you’re doing with a camera, it won’t matter what you look or dress like.”

The drive from the Charles de Gaulle Airport to the heart of Paris was a hair over thirty minutes. It was just long enough for Damen and Nik to sit on the edge of the too-nice seats in the car and take in the sights. At first, it started like most drives near or in a big city: surrounded by a bunch of cars and monotonous buildings. But the closer they got, the more that ‘real’ feeling started to sink in. When they set sight on the first Parisian landmark, a statue that was too far away to read the plaque, Damen smacked Nik with the back of his hand and said, “Welcome to your new home for the next month.”

Sights started to get more and more recognizable. When they turned onto Rue de Rivoli, the Seine came into view. It was wider than it looked in pictures and it was impossible to decide if it was worth it to spend more time looking at the blue of the water or the beautiful French architecture all around them.

“We definitely have to plan something there,” Nik said, a sort of awe in his voice as he pointed to the Louvre. The pyramid was just visible enough to see the sunlight bounce from its glass.

“You’ll have plenty of opportunity,” Jord said. The car turned left down Rue de l’Amiral de Coligny. “Etoile’s building is just next to the museum, right outside the Tuileries Garden.”

“Wait, we’re almost there?”

Jord only hummed, the sound just loud enough to reach Damen and Nik’s ears, and then they were on Quai Franςois Mitterand and the Seine was practically at their fingertips. They were both leaning forward in their seats again, taking in the boats touring the river, the people sitting on the river’s edge, and the buildings across the river all framed by the sun. They felt the car ease to a stop.

The Tuileries Gardens were bright green. The flowers weren’t yet in bloom, the weather was too cold for that, but it was still beautiful in its contrast against the uniform color of all the surrounding Parisian buildings. But more eye catching than the gardens was the Etoile headquarters directly to the car’s right. The building went with everything else in Paris, its color a neutral cream, its design recognizably Haussmanian. It stood out though with its added ornamentation, the building busy even if lacking in colors. And right above the door was a sign in script writing, the letters enormous and undeniable: Etoile.

“Well,” Damen started, and he pulled his eyes away from the building to look at Nik expectantly.

“Well,” Nik repeated.

Jord had already gotten out and rounded the car to open the door before Nik even thought about unclenching his fist still holding onto his carry on. With a deep breath, Nik got out and smoothed down his shirt.

“You’re going to be fine in there, Nik,” Damen said reassuringly. He was still sitting in the car, one arm over the seat where Nik had just been, and he was flashing his biggest smile. “Can’t wait to hear about it when you get out.”

“Actually,” Jord interrupted whilst still holding the door wide open, “it’s been requested that you join.”

“Me?”

“Potential hires are looked through thoroughly for both professional and personal purposes,” Jord explained. “As you are in most of the photographs that were sent in for review, it was decided that you would be an important person to meet as well. Of course, if you’re opposed, you can wait in the lobby.”

“What do you think, Nik? This is your thing.”

“I’d like you there,” Nik said. “If you’ve been asked for personally, I don’t have any reason not to have you there.”

“And I’m your best friend in the whole world so you want me there for support,” Damen said, filling in the obvious gaps in Nik’s reasoning.

Jord led the way inside.

Though the outside was the same cream color as the other buildings around, probably due to a city restriction, the inside was like entering an entirely different universe. The floors were marble, a real marble that made everything from voices to footsteps echo, and right at the center, just in front of the desk where two beautiful secretaries sat on their phones whilst typing at a maddening pace on their computers, was a gold inlay, its design immaculate swirls and crossed lines. It was a labyrinth of busyness and it wasn’t calmed down or contrasted by an unbusy surrounding. No, instead the walls – which were white, yes, but – were brimming, overflowing, with solid gold decoration that covered every inch. Each arcaded window had a foot of gold surrounding its edges, the designs cherubs and flowers and muses like the palaces of old. There were a dozen gold gilded statues around the room that matched the gold gilded paneling taking up most of the walls’ space. None of it, however, compared to the chandelier hanging from the center, the piece looking like the one out of _The Phantom of the Opera_.

Damen and Nik shared a look that said everything. Jord was walking forward without hesitation and they followed as close behind as they could, trying not to get too distracted by their surroundings. Finally, after what felt like an eternity of walking, they reached the elevators which also, to no surprise now, were decorated all in gold.

“Take the elevator to the top floor. Someone will greet you and escort you to the owner’s office,” Jord said. He went to turn, his sunglasses reflecting all the gold in the room back in Damen and Nik’s face, when Nik asked, “What about our bags?”

“I will be taking your bags to your hotel,” Jord said. “And yes, your hotel has been arranged and paid for already. Once you are done, I will be here to pick you up and bring you there.”

Damen and Nik shared another look before Damen said, “Thank you very much, Jord. You’ve been a great help to us.”

Jord seemed hesitant to do anything for a moment and even more hesitant to say anything, so after an awkward pause he nodded curtly and turned the way they had come.

The elevator had a mirrored ceiling inside and it glittered the gold inlay of the floor back up. Nik hit the button that was above all the others, the one to take them to the top floor, and then Damen and Nik both sighed in unison.

“Are you feeling claustrophobic?” Damen asked. “I’m feeling claustrophobic.”

“I knew they used a lot of designs on their clothing,” Nik started, “but I didn’t think that would transfer to the building as well.”

“You ready for this?”

“Not much I could do right now if I wasn’t,” Nik said.

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

“I’ll be fine.”

They reached the top floor soon enough and this floor wasn’t much different from the main one. In other words, it was busy and overwhelming. There was a desk directly in front of the elevator doors, a smaller desk than the one on the main floor, but it sat empty. The mirrored panelling of the desk showed just how much Damen and Nik’s sweatpants went against everything Etoile stood for. To the right was a narrow hallway and to the left was another and, for a minute, Damen and Nik looked back and forth between the two, looking for a sign. It felt like the airport all over again.

It was just when they had decided to go to the right that a child came around the corner.

‘Child’ was the best word for him for he didn’t look a day over twelve, even if he was dressed like a little adult. He had a mess of artfully wavy brown hair and a stunning pair of blue eyes that matched the sapphires around the necklace on his throat. There was a shimmer to his eyelids, a golden glitter that went well with the actual gold glitter covering the jacket so big he appeared to be swimming in it. He was a beautiful child and he would have been more beautiful if his face didn’t have such a distasteful expression on it.

The child had stopped when he saw Damen and Nik and once they had taken him in and he them, the child scoffed and said in a voice clearer than a bell, “Les bêtes envahissent la ville, je vois,” before continuing to walk in a way that said this was definitely not worth his time.

Damen couldn’t help but laugh, the sound drawing both Nik and the child’s attention to him. “Les bêtes sont là pour voir le propriétaire de l'Etoile. Savez-vous où nous pourrions le trouver?”

The child’s face grew pale, if only for just a moment, before he recomposed himself. “This way,” he said with agitation, not pausing to ensure they were following him before he went down the left hallway. At the end of the hallway was a huge door, one that screamed of importance.

Damen and Nik expected the child to knock on the grand door that was clearly the entrance to the main office, but the child went in without a care.

“You have visitors,” the child said.

They couldn’t see the man, but they could see the top of his head. He was in a tall chair, large enough to be a throne, and the back of it was facing them as he typed away at the computer. If he had heard the child, he didn’t pay him any mind, but the child didn’t seem to be bothered. Instead, he stepped up to the desk, plucked a red lollipop from a gold gilded bowl, and left without another word or a spared glance in Damen and Nik’s direction.

“Assieds-toi.” The man’s voice was deep, a rumble in the delicacy of the room, and Nik turned to Damen for guidance. Damen, silently, pointed at the two chairs in front of the desk and they both sat down, listening to the clicking of the keys on the keyboard and the tapping of Nik’s toe on the ground.

Damen decided to give all his attention to the ticking clock on the wall. It was both to keep the time and to also try to figure out just how a clock could have so many things going on with it: an opal face, gold numbers, jewel encrusted hands, and Damen didn’t even know where to begin with the outside of it. Still, it was how he knew exactly three minutes and twelve seconds could feel like an eternity. Luckily, that was when the man turned around in his seat and smiled at them openly.

He didn’t look like what Damen thought a fashion designer and modeling agency owner would look like but, then again, Damen supposed he had never given much thought to what a fashion designer and modeling agency owner would look like in the first place.

The man was large; he had a broad chest and shoulders to match and Damen guessed that if he were to stand, he would be close to Damen’s own height. His hair was dark and neat and his beard full, if sprinkled with just enough gray to make him look dignified. His suit was dark and made him look regal, someone who would draw the eye and demand respect.

When he stood, it confirmed what Damen had thought about the man’s height, but it was hard to give that much mind when his smile went up to his blue eyes. “Bonjour bonjour. Bienvenue à Paris.” He must have seen something on Damen and Nik’s faces, especially Nik’s face, because he quickly came back with, “L'anglais serait-il un meilleur terrain d'entente pour nous? J'ai peur de ne pas parler grec.”

“English would be great, thank you,” Damen said, smiling at the smallest expression of relief on Nik’s face.

“Of course,” the man said agreeably and then he leaned forward, hand out. “And you must be our talented photographer, Nik.” The two of them shook hands.

“I am. Nik, that is. Thank you for having me. Us. It’s an honor just to be here.”

“We here at Etoile are honored to have you.” The man turned to Damen. “And you must be Damen.”

“Yes, sir,” Damen said, shaking the man’s hand. His grip was strong, his fingers rough. “Paris has been wonderful to us already and we’ve only been here an hour.”

Everything was all polite smiles as they each sat back down and adjusted into the chairs. The man had his fingers clasped together on the deeply rich colored desk and his eyes fell to Nik. “Do you prefer to go by Nik or is there something else you’d like to be called?”

“Nik is fine. It’s less of a mouthful than Nikandros.”

“Indeed, it is.” The man laughed just a bit. “So, Nik, I have to say that all of us here at Etoile, myself especially, were incredibly impressed with your portfolio.”

“Thank you,” Nik said genuinely. Damen could already see Nik’s shoulders dropping their tension, even if just a little.

“We normally receive applications from fashion photographers, people who live in the business of finding the perfect shots to display clothing made of every kind of fabric, clothing cut into every kind of style. It isn’t often we look over action shots of people surfing,” he said, motioning over to Damen, “or pictures of the stars over a desert. It was a nice change of pace. This brings me to two questions I have for you, Nik. The first is simply to sate my own curiosity: what drove you to want to photograph Paris Fashion Week? The second question, if you wouldn’t mind, is the question of how you came into the opportunity to photograph all around the world? It’s astonishing, especially for a photographer so young.”

“Well,” Nik said after a deep breath, “to answer your first question, I can say that fashion shows were never a thought, not until I started to meet other photographers as we travelled over the years. There was a photographer, from France actually, that we befriended while in Norway a few years back and last year he was given the opportunity to shoot for Silversio and he said he learned so much. I’ve been expanding my photography more and more as the years have gone on and I thought that this would be another great way to expand my art.”

“That’s quite a drive you have.”

“I owe a lot of it to Damen,” Nik continued, moving onto the second question. “When we were children, we made a pact to spend our gap year travelling the world together. We wanted to climb mountains and see every ocean. The older we got, the more I wanted to skip gap year all together and go straight into working for my family. But Damen convinced me of the worth held in our planned gap year and I realized one year wouldn’t cause me any harm and I would have hated myself for not giving it a chance. But our one year got ahead of us in terms of our social media. We started all of our accounts as a way to document the year. We never guessed it would turn into what it did and what it has.”

“I think congratulations are very deserved for all that you’ve accomplished. I’m assuming this means you’re a self-taught photographer as well?”

“Yes.”

The man hummed, the sound not unpleasant, just thoughtful, and after a pause as though to collect his thoughts, he turned his attention to Damen. “And I believe a congratulations should be given to you as well. Nik here has quite a talent with a camera, but from what I have seen, your charisma is remarkable. It explains much of your success, I would think.”

“Damen could rally himself an army if he wanted to,” Nik said.

“Charisma is everything in this world,” the man said. “You need it to survive.”

Damen smiled the smile he gave in pictures. The man smiled back and clasped his hands together again.

“I don’t want to keep you two any longer than necessary, I’m sure you would like to rest, and I have a few more meetings to attend before my day is over. The reason I asked for you to come meet me as soon as you arrived was to explain how the first part of this is going to go.” He plucked a folder from a small and neat pile on his desk and handed it over to Nik. Even the folders here looked expensive, Etoile’s fancy script all over the front. “In two days’ time we will begin our first photoshoot. I’ve learned over the years of building and perfecting Etoile that the best shows were shot by photographers who had a relationship with the models. This photoshoot will give you the opportunity to begin building those relationships. The clothing line you will be shooting is our new “Gold Label” line. It’s much different than anything we’ll be premiering at fashion week.” Inside the folder was an itinerary and an array of photographs of the most important pieces in this specific line of clothing. “The photoshoot is scheduled for three days. This is to ensure that each of the photographers have plenty of time to shoot with the group and to work with the individual models. There will be five photographers there, but only three of you will be going to fashion week.” He turned to Nik and smiled that same open smile. “Nothing like a little friendly competition.”

“And that’s all we’ll be doing before the actual show?”

“Yes. I will then be giving you the rest of the week to put together your shots from the photoshoot in order to present them to me. From there, a decision will be made on which photographers will be staying with us. Then you’ll have a week before the show to further prepare for the big event. Are there any questions about that?”

“I don’t believe so, no.”

“Well then, I believe we are settled here.” He stood up from his desk promptly, a physical end to the quick meeting, and Damen and Nik stood to follow him to the door. “Inside the folder are phone numbers for Jord whom you’ve already met and a few of my other men. If you need anything, do not hesitate to call them during your time here in Paris.”

“Thank you,” Nik said, shaking his hand once more, “for the opportunity and your generosity.”

“Yes, thank you,” Damen repeated.

“Of course, gentlemen. I’m looking forward to what this week will bring.”

They passed the child again as they were leaving. The lollipop was down to almost nothing on the stick and he watched them near predatorily, a finger twirling the gem attached to the zipper of his jacket.

“Bonne soirée,” Damen said with a wave.

The child flipped them off, his painted nail glittering.

Once they were downstairs, it was a quick journey to the hotel they had been put up in. The hotel was located in an old palace just across the river. Sadly, they were one building behind a river front view, but neither could care, not when the view itself was another bustling Parisian apartment complex that radiated life and sophistication, its inhabitants clearly upper class.

They were on the fifth floor and their room was spacious and decorated much more simplistically than anything Etoile could dream up. It was appreciated after the blinding display of wealth and ornamentation. The cream-colored walls matched the exterior of all the iconic Haussman buildings and the arched window and doorways gave it the elegance so expected from something in this part of Paris. The gaudiest thing were the curtains and Damen and Nik were quick to pull those back and secure them. After all, they blocked the best part of the room, the terrace overlooking the street.

They spent the next two hours taking turns showering the plane off of them, unpacking all their things, ordering room service, and chatting away about the things they couldn’t say earlier.

“What was with the kid?” Nik asked as he folded another shirt and put it in a drawer.

“I don’t know,” Damen said. “Maybe he’s one of the models.”

“He’s a little young to be a model,” Nik said.

“He was dressed like one.”

“He looked twelve.”

“Well the kid doesn’t matter. What matters is that the meeting went really well. He seems to like you,” Damen said.

“I’m not sure,” Nik said.

Damen rolled his eyes. “Don’t start with that.”

“I didn’t start anything.”

“What _also_ matters,” Damen interrupted, “is that I could very much get used to this.”

He was standing at the open entrance of the terrace. The terrace itself was just large enough to fit a small table and two chairs, perfect for early morning coffee or relaxing at night. At the other building, the one just across, were other terraces full of people doing just that as the sun slowly began to fall over the city. On the streets were people all bundled as the nighttime temperatures began to settle in. Best of all, on the terrace table was a bottle of wine, a nice deep red, with Etoile’s script signature and a note from the owner himself bidding them, yet again, a welcome to Paris.

“I bet you could,” Nik said. He was already grabbing the available bottle opener. “I’m the one doing all the work.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *I don't speak French so all French-speak was Google translated. This will only happen less than a handful of times throughout this series, but I wanted to get it in there that Damen does speak French.
> 
> Thank you to @wishwars for the suggestion of putting the French sentences in translation here! 
> 
> 1) The child had stopped when he saw Damen and Nik and once they had taken him in and he them, the child scoffed and said in a voice clearer than a bell, “Les bêtes envahissent la ville, je vois,” before continuing to walk in a way that said this was definitely not worth his time.
> 
> The child had stopped when he saw Damen and Nik and once they had taken him in and he them, the child scoffed and said in a voice clearer than a bell, "The beasts are taking over the city, I see," before continuing to walk in a way that said this was definitely not worth his time.
> 
> 2) Damen couldn’t help but laugh, the sound drawing both Nik and the child’s attention to him. “Les bêtes sont là pour voir le propriétaire de l'Etoile. Savez-vous où nous pourrions le trouver?”
> 
> Damen couldn't help but laugh, the sound drawing both Nik and the child's attention to him. "The beasts are here to meet the owner of Etoile. Do you know where we could find him?"
> 
> 3) “Assieds-toi.” The man’s voice was deep, a rumble in the delicacy of the room, and Nik turned to Damen for guidance. Damen, silently, pointed at the two chairs in front of the desk and they both sat down, listening to the clicking of the keys on the keyboard and the tapping of Nik’s toe on the ground.
> 
> "Take a seat." The man’s voice was deep, a rumble in the delicacy of the room, and Nik turned to Damen for guidance. Damen, silently, pointed at the two chairs in front of the desk and they both sat down, listening to the clicking of the keys on the keyboard and the tapping of Nik’s toe on the ground.
> 
> 4) When he stood, it confirmed what Damen had thought about the man’s height, but it was hard to give that much mind when his smile went up to his blue eyes. “Bonjour bonjour. Bienvenue à Paris.” He must have seen something on Damen and Nik’s faces, especially Nik’s face, because he quickly came back with, “L'anglais serait-il un meilleur terrain d'entente pour nous? J'ai peur de ne pas parler grec.”
> 
> When he stood, it confirmed what Damen had thought about the man's height, but it was hard to give that much mind when his smile went up to his blue eyes. "Hello hello. Welcome to Paris." He must have seen something on Damen and Nik's faces, especially Nik's face, because he quickly came back with, "Would English be a better middle ground for us? I am afraid I do not speak Greek."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, all! first of all, i'd like to say thank you for the millionth time to everyone who has read this story, commented, kudo'd it, etc. you have no idea how much it means to me. 
> 
> here is chapter three! it would have been up a few days ago if not for finals, but it's here now <3 i hope it doesn't disappoint and i hope that it sets the tone for what's to come.

It was crazy to think all that could happen in a twenty-four-hour time period.

One minute, Damen and Nik were unpacking their belongings in a paid-for-by-Etoile hotel room, one minute later they were both delving into their own very important research, and one minute after that they were on a photoshoot set, their first photoshoot set ever.

Nik, upon arrival, was certain he was in over his head. Damen didn’t want to say it out loud, but he thought Nik was in over his head too.

In typical Nik fashion, his own researching had been spent going over each paper in the folder he had been given in the meeting. By the end of the day, there had been scribbles in all different colors of ink spattered across the surfaces of the pages, the meanings useless to Damen who had spent the same amount of time Nik had spent going over the folder figuring out how he could tag along to the photoshoot.

During his own research, Damen had discovered that most photographers do, in fact, have an agent that handles their business and, when available, attends photography events with them. Naturally, Damen had concluded, there was no one better suited for that role than he himself and he had told Nik as much in his fifth interruption of Nik’s studies that day. Nik had waved him off and Damen had taken that as a go-ahead to do as he pleased.

It’s how he found himself here, looking around in awe at the _everything_ going on. He briefly wondered if all sets were this busy or if it was more an Etoile thing. Everything about Etoile seemed busy.

The shoot wasn’t scheduled to actually start until ten in the morning and the photographer’s call time had been for seven. Damen thought that seemed really early, but upon getting there and seeing the organized chaos of what was going on, he started to think seven wasn’t early enough.

He whistled under his breath and said so.

“It’ll be fine,” Nik said. He wasn’t looking at Damen, not looking at him at all. His eyes were assessing the room, the people, the lights. “All the photographers are meeting with the designer of this shoot, then the models are going to finish getting ready while we set up, then we’re going to set them up, and then the shoot begins. At least I think that’s how it’s going to happen. That’s what the papers said.”

A woman pushing a wardrobe cart walked by them, the black coverings for the clothing items hanging on it swishing against one another in an uneven fashion, all in contradiction with the one slightly squeaky wheel.

“So, who do you go to first?”

“Photographers are meeting over there,” a voice said from behind them. They both turned to see a woman with a severely cropped dark bob standing by a beverage table. She was watching them with blatant curiosity burning in her eyes. With a jut of her sharp chin, she was motioning over at where a large white covering was hanging from the vaulted ceiling of the gallery.

“Thanks,” Damen said after a moment.

“You both looked lost. Here, that kind of expression puts you behind the rest.” She walked toward them, a dark red mug steaming with caffeine in hand, and gave them her free hand for a handshake. “I’m Vannes. One of the designers. And you,” she said, pausing as she shook Nik’s hand, “must be one of our dear boss’ lovely photographer experimentees.”

“If that’s how we’re defining it,” Nik said with a purse to his lips.

“And that makes you,” she trailed, eyes moving over Damen.

“I’m his agent,” Damen said. Vannes laughed, the sound bright and loud. No one paid them any mind.

“You said that so confidently, I almost believed you.”

Her eyes kept that blatant curiosity in them as she walked back over to the beverage table. There was something there Damen didn’t necessarily dislike, but he did find unsettling. He and Nik looked at one another, each with one raised eyebrow.

“Shall we?” Damen asked after a minute with a smile on his mouth.

“Yeah,” Nik said. He was biting off a laugh.

It was an adventurous little walk over to where the curtain was. There was a handful of more carts with clothes that rushed by, each pushed by a harried looking assistant of some kind, and what was definitely one of the models, a tall thing with flaming red hair who didn’t see them as anything more than an obstacle needing stepped over in his path all on their journey over. But once there, they were face to face with Nik’s competition.

“We’ll get introductions out of the way so we’re all familiar with one another,” an older and stout man said in heavily accented French. “My name is Audin. I, as well as Ms. Vannes, am one of the assistant designers of Etoile’s gold label line. Charls, Etoile’s head designer, will be in and out as this photoshoot is taking place, but he is also checking in upon the final designs for the Paris Fashion Week clothing so he will be busy.” Audin began to walk, handing out papers to the five photographers. “I am aware that you received paperwork from our very own courageous leader, but you may find some of the information on this sheet extremely useful. Remember for those of you who may not have experience in a photoshoot of this scale, these days can go for well over twelve hours.” Damen and Nik shared another look after Audin most definitely looked at Nik as he said, ‘for those you who may not have experience.’

“Without further ado, I would like to welcome you, Mr. Jeurre from our very own France, and congratulate you on your opportunity today.” Jeurre was by far the oldest of the photographers, with short cropped hair and a horribly serious expression that downturned his thin lips. “I would like to welcome you, Mr. Guilliame, also from our very own France, and congratulate you on your opportunity today.” Guilliame was a timid looking young man with fidgety fingers and eyebrows that looked permanently high on his forehead. “I would like to welcome you, Ms. Talik, from Turkey, and congratulate you on your opportunity today.” Talik was a tall and muscled woman, nearly at eye-level with both Damen and Nik, and eyes so dark they could have been black. “I would like to welcome you, Mr. Hendric, from Denmark, and congratulate you on your opportunity.” Hendric was large, broad across the shoulders, and had a mop of red hair and a matching beard that was more orange than red. “And lastly, I would like to welcome you, Mr. Nik, from Greece, and congratulate you on your opportunity today.”

Today is going to be quite busy, but hopefully quite rewarding as well. I am looking forward to seeing each of you work.”

Audin didn’t stay to talk or mosey around. He left, finding his way back to a table where Vannes stood with her severely cropped dark bob, and Damen huffed out a laugh.

“I can’t help but feel like that welcoming was nothing but a show.”

“Yeah, my gut is telling me he just did that so we wouldn’t run out the door before they could effectively suck us in for the day,” Nik agreed. He huffed out the same kind of laugh, looked down at the paper in his hand, then looked up at Damen. Overwhelmed was an understatement. “I should –” he started, a hand motioning vaguely at nothing.

“Right. Yeah, of course, Nik. Go do your thing. I’m going to wander, see what trouble I can get into,” Damen said. “Maybe after I get a coffee.”

“I was going to tell you that you looked like a zombie from that shitty movie we watched last month, but I didn’t want to insult you.”

Damen laughed as he walked away, fighting down the instinct to flip Nik off, and then watched until Nik disappeared back behind the curtain. Then, just as he said, Damen started to take the time to wander.

The photoshoot was in a gallery, one located in the southern part of the city, and its grandeur nearly outmatched that of Etoile’s headquarters. It was an all-white gallery, nothing but perfectly glossy marble and empty white walls. There were statues here that reminded Damen of the ones back home, all white, even their eyes, but they didn’t invoke the same kinds of feelings as the ones home; they felt foreign and cold and yet Damen couldn’t not look at them.

“Big boy.” The pet name was said from somewhere behind him and, once again, he turned to find Vannes looking at him with that same expression she had worn minutes ago. “Need help working the coffee machine?”

“No, I’ve got it. Thanks.”

“So, if you’re not a photographer, what on earth are you doing here?” she asked, handing him an empty red mug identical to her own.

“I told you, I’m here with one of the photographers, Nik. I’m his agent,” Damen said. The coffee maker hissed, steam rising from where it was pulling a double-shot before filling up with ninety-degree’s hot water.

Vannes leaned an elbow against the table, lowered her head just a smidge, and said in a quiet voice, “You’re not really his agent, are you? Brother perhaps?”

Damen felt his cheek dimple. “Close enough. Best friends since we were in diapers.”

“You two must be the influencers then,” Vannes said, laughing like she had earlier.

“Influencers?”

“You know, those people on Instagram or whatever that have millions of followers and pretty bodies to keep those followers interested.”

“No,” said Damen. “We’re not like that. We don’t sell anything or –”

“You sell yourselves,” she said, the words accompanied by an eye roll. “You’re not so different from our boys. The main difference, however, is that our boys will eat you alive.” Vannes snatched a sleek black stir stick that sat available in a holder before turning and walking back to where the photographers had disappeared off to, her heels clicking. “Take a croissant, you’ll never have one this good anywhere else.”

Damen understood the overwhelmed look he had seen in Nik’s eyes earlier only, for Damen, he wasn’t sure if it was just being here, if it was the strong smell of the espresso in his nose, if it was the dizzying effect the lights that were getting set up over where the main photos would be taken, if it was the shimmering gold of the clothes and makeup and jewelry, or if it was the thrumming feeling that everyone’s smiles were fake and not telling Damen all he should know.

He shook off the feeling by walking again, this time with a steaming cup in his hands. He walked by the table of jewelry, glittering watches, rings, necklaces, earrings, and a few other items he wasn’t quite sure what to make of, and he didn’t dare touch them. He then walked by the clothing. Unfamiliar as he was with fabrics, he recognized the gauzy look of some shirts and he took in its appearance next to the embroidered sleeves, lace trim, and sleek looking fabric of some of the other pieces.

More people were arriving every second. Damen had noticed it as soon as Vannes had left, the constant opening and closing of the gallery doors, the parade of faces, some smiling and some not. In the corner he saw a familiar face. Jord was there, looking serious as always, and his sunglasses from the day before yesterday were firmly in place despite them being indoors. Damen thought about approaching him and then thought better of it. Instead he opted to wander more, letting his feet guide him where they pleased.

Across the gallery, he spotted Nik for the first time since they had separated. He watched as Nik took a few pictures of one of the statues, looked at the LCD screen, adjusted a few buttons that Damen was certain could change everything about a photo, then took another picture. He watched Nik repeat the process and when it became clear that Nik was going to do that for a while, Damen continued on.

In the far back corner was where the magic must be taking place. Magic, in this case, meant changing the models from every day-beautiful to Etoile photoshoot worthy-beautiful. There were more carts of clothes, more jewelry, a changing curtain, and a line of vanity mirrors that were lit up like the Eiffel tower at night. Damen found himself walking there, preparing to perhaps introduce himself to the makeup artists that might already be there, when he suddenly saw a swish of gold; and then Damen saw him.

Damen hadn’t expected the models to have been ready so early. Then again, Damen didn’t really know a lot about fashion so, looking at it now, his expectations were probably way off the mark anyway. Still, whatever expectations he had had going into this hadn’t prepared him for this.

Everything about him was gold.

He had legs a mile long, legs dressed in a loose and transparent gold material that brushed the tops of his bare feet. Across his shoulders was a drape of gold silk that clung to the skin right below his collarbones and then flowed, the holes of the sleeves so low the top three ribs on both sides of his chest showed. On one of his hands, one of his elegant hands, were four rings, three of them simplistic bands with the smallest of gems embedded in the metal whilst the last one held in its center a large citrine stone. On the other hand were three rings, each with equally sized jewels, ones that matched the jewels dangling from his ears. It was only when he turned, assumingly to talk to one of the makeup artists, that Damen got a look at his face and was able to take in the delicately placed gold leaf on his temples, that dusted the tops of his shoulders and the even more beautiful gold of his hair that had gold interwoven through the strands. Then the light hit him, and Damen saw the one piece of him that didn’t match, that wasn’t gold at all. Beyond the gold shadow dusting the inner corners of his eyes was the most startling blue color, brighter and clearer than the color of the water back home.

Even if he had been in a room full of nothing but the most beautiful of things, Damen knew then and there he would have never been able to look anywhere else.

Whatever snippet of conversation the model and the makeup artist had been having must have ended because suddenly he was walking toward Damen. Somehow there was both a determination and a carelessness to the way he walked, as though he was very ready for whatever was to come and felt very above it all too.

“À moins que cette tasse de café ne soit pour moi, il n'y a aucune raison pour que vous vous teniez ici.”

Damen had a lot of reactions to that. The main part of him wanted to laugh, that kind of laugh that comes out as a huff of air from his nose, and say something, something like, ‘ _This coffee isn’t for you, but my room has a coffee machine that’ll do a great job if you want to check it out._ ’ The other part of Damen wanted to say something of the same tone as his, something in French just to cause a reaction, something like, ‘ _Surpris, vous pouvez même me voir ici depuis ce grand cheval sur lequel vous êtes,_ ’ or ask ‘ _Portez-vous de l'or pour montrer votre personnalité scintillante ou pour cacher votre merde?_ ’ But instead of doing any of that, saying any of that, Damen just stared, taking in the way he walked as though he was gliding, taking in the hard pull of his otherwise full mouth, taking in the single strand of blond hair that had fallen out of his artfully done do and instead was swinging in front of those blue eyes.

It was only when he was standing by Audin, speaking, that Damen noticed Nik, still across the room, staring pointedly right at Damen whilst making the universal ‘Cut it out!’ motion across his neck.

It brought Damen back to himself and he laughed, laughing harder when Nik mouthed, ‘ _You’re dead to me._ ’ Damen walked over to Nik, mouthing back as he walked, ‘ _I’m the only thing keeping you from hanging yourself right now,_ ’ with a noose motion and everything.

“How’s it going?” he asked, taking in the open camera bag and all the lenses scattered. The death stare he got from Nik said it all.

“I have no idea what I’m doing.” He lifted up one lens that was wider than the one already in his hands before setting it back down. “I knew that coming into this. I knew that when they handed me that folder and I most definitely knew it walking in here. But after that?” he said, jutting a thumb where Charls had joined Audin and the model, “I’m going to be lucky to get out of here alive.”

“Hey,” Damen started. “You’re going to be fine. They’re not even going to know what to do when they see what you create.”

“I’m sure you’ve heard what they’re saying about me. About us,” Nik said.

Damen leaned a shoulder against one of the many white pillars. “No?”

“Well half of them speak only French, so I’m sure my translation is off, but Mr. Denmark over there was talking to Jeurre, the old man, about how we’re _influencers_ ,” he said, making a face at the word.

“Oh,” Damen with the exact same face, “yeah. Vannes, our lovely friend we met when we first got here, told me that.” He took in Nik’s furrowed brow, took in the muscle clenching in his jaw. “Look, they might think of us, of you, like that right now, but I meant what I said, Nik. They’re going to see what you create and they’re going to realize how below you they all are. I –”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Charls announced loudly, his voice carrying far with the high ceilings. He sounded joyous and genuine, far different than anyone else here had sounded as they spoke. “Many of our models are in the final stages of dress. That means it will be time to begin in the next few minutes. Photographers, please begin setting up over here, to the left. I can’t wait to see what art you envision!”

“See?” Damen muttered. “That guy believes in you.”

Nik rolled his eyes and went to comment when the blond walked by again. He was going back toward the vanities where one of the stylists was beckoning him. Damen watched with rapt attention as the stylist fixed that loose strand of hair that had been one of the many objects of Damen’s focus earlier.

“His name is Laurent.”

“Hm?”

Nik was squatted down, rearranging lenses, but now he was looking at Damen. The look in his eyes was too familiar, a resigned kind of look that Damen hadn’t seen on Nik’s face since Jokaste, and yet he was smiling. The upturn to his mouth made him look more exasperatedly fond.

“The blond. His name is Laurent.” Nik fiddled with two of the buttons on the camera, turning one to the left three times, turning the other to the right once. “He’s Etoile’s top earner and also the nephew of the owner. I would say he only got the job because of his connections, but clearly,” Nik said with a careless motion to where Laurent stood, “that’s not the reason. Or, well, not the only reason anyway.”

“Laurent.” Damen tested out the name. “He’s, uh, something.”

“He’s blond, blue-eyed, beautiful, and, if what I’ve heard is true, a raging bitch so yeah, he really is something. He’s all of your weaknesses wrapped into one.”

Damen ignored the last part. “Who said he’s a bitch?”

“Anyone and everyone that’s ever been in a room with him for longer than two minutes.”

“He can’t be that bad,” said Damen.

Nik shot him another look. “Jeurre over there has worked with him before. Jeurre says that at a photoshoot two years ago, Laurent made one of the newer designers cry so hard that he quit on the spot. I’ve heard one of the current designers talking about how Laurent refused to let one of the newest models, one of the newest signees, be part of this show at all and put down his foot until his uncle gave him his way. I also heard another one of the models say that Laurent gets to lead all the shoots because of his name.”

“Well, I think his face probably has a big thing to do with the last part,” Damen said.

“That’s not the point, Damen. He’s a spoiled, entitled, and, again, raging bitch. If he doesn’t like someone, he can and will make their life a living hell. And in this case, that means that if he doesn’t like me, it’s me whose life will be made a living hell and who won’t get a shot at making it beyond these next three days. But, if what I have also heard is true, he doesn’t like anybody so…” Nik trailed. “Who knows what that means.”

“Come on, who doesn’t like your smiling face?”

“Alright everyone,” Charls said over the noise of the room once again. “We are now ready to do our preliminary shots. Photographers, you will each do some photographs of our entire beautiful group before we start rotating each model with you all individually and in smaller groups, most likely duos.”

“Time to start,” Nik said with a huff.

“You’re going to kill it,” Damen said.

“Or get killed.”

The photoshoot background was nothing but a white backdrop, one that might as well have been the white walls of the gallery. The models were all in place and they looked like the inside of a jewelry box, all glittering and golden and bright. It was evident who the stars of Etoile were; they were placed near the front, shining. The redhead Damen and Nik had seen earlier was there, dressed in an all-sheer gold piece, the only solid bit of gold being the piece around his hips and the line of paint from the center of his forehead all the way down the bridge of his nose and the middle of his lips. Then there was a brunette, curly haired and young with green eyes and a flowing golden top, ones with sleeves that almost touched the floor when his hands were by his sides and a shock of gold shadow on his lids that made his green eyes look full of fire. Toward the back was a slew of other models, all pretty, if generic, mostly with hair in shades of brown and a small handful of ones with brown eyes that reflected the gold and made the eyes look like honey. And there, at the front, was Laurent. That loose strand of hair had long been put in place but Damen couldn’t not remember where it had fallen, how its gold had matched the gold of everything else and how Laurent’s blue eyes were the most startling thing in this entire gallery.

Damen, seeing that it was his time to let Nik do his thing, took a step back.

All five of the photographers had a different set up, had a different way of standing, and all of the models, even in a group setting, radiated a different kind of energy. Damen watched as Nik took a picture, checked it on the screen, adjusted something on the camera settings, and took another. He watched as Nik lowered himself a little, instead of standing at his full height. Then it became clear Nik had found the right settings for himself and his camera. And then Nik became less interesting to watch from his stagnant pose and Damen’s gaze quickly drifted.

Despite what Nik had told him about Laurent, Damen found himself drawn to watching the blond. There was something about him and the way he moved that was so unlike any of the other models, so unique to him and so graceful and elegant. Damen watched as Laurent pressed a shoulder against the redhead’s shoulder, watched as he lifted a single finger, one heavy with a ring, and placed it underneath the redhead’s chin where the line of solid gold paint ended.

It seemed too soon that things changed; Charls, who had been watching it all with bright hopeful eyes, started separating the photographers to different sections. It became clear the sections were random, that some photographers had sections of the gallery with pillars, or another had a section with the chandelier light overtop. Nik was led over to the gallery windows, bright and surrounded by the statues that reminded Damen of home.

The models were sent in groups and duos as said, all except Laurent who was moving around alone. Nik’s first photos were with the curly haired brunette and three of the less prominent models. Damen watched with fascination as Nik rearranged each model a few times, made some changes after taking three photos, and then took more photos, immediately pleased just as he had been with the group photos earlier.

Each group and duo stayed with each photographer for ten minutes. Damen realized it as he found himself watching Laurent move from the photographer from Denmark to the photographer from Turkey. The photographer from Turkey was in the section under the chandelier and Damen couldn’t not see how she moved back and played with her angles so the light from the chandelier created a rainbow effect with the light and shine of Laurent’s gold. Damen would bet money that those would be Times Square billboard worthy.

Damen had just turned to watch Nik ask the redhead to face the window when Charls announced that it was time for them to move once more. The redhead, heels clicking, left with a flirtatious wave. Then Laurent was there.

Laurent didn’t so much as even wait for Nik to mutter a hello or give him any kind of instruction before he was posing himself, the poses mostly just him standing and yet they were captivating in how natural they came to him. Nik went with it, not bothering to speak up, not until they only had another five minutes.

“Could you,” Nik started, his voice quiet in his attempt to not disrupt anyone else, in his disuse of it, “could you maybe pose with the statue?”

Laurent said nothing, only looked at Nik with a cool blue stare before moving to the statue closest to the window. With a gentle touch, Laurent pressed his fingertips against the statue’s own outstretched ones. Nik snapped a photo. Laurent stayed there for another thirty seconds, his eyes staring straight into the statue’s, and then he stayed there, his eyes staring straight into the camera. After that he shifted, turning himself into the open embrace of the statue’s arms, pressing himself against it close, pressing his cheek against its own cold one, soft as a lover. This time he looked ahead, his eyes finding an empty spot across the room, looking at it under his lashes, the look seductive and untrying. Damen’s breath was lost somewhere.

Nik asked Laurent another question, asked him, “Could you move behind the statue?” and Laurent did. Without prompting, Laurent draped his arms over its shoulders, but not before unclasping his shirt and letting it slide off his body so he could place it on the statue. Nik stepped closer so he was a foot away from the statue, so he could get a closeup shot of Laurent’s eyes against the gold of his now-discarded shirt and the white of the statue’s body.

And then Charls was calling again for the rotation to continue. Laurent left without a spare word or glance for Nik. The gold of his shirt, held between two fingers like it was a dirty handkerchief, trailed behind him.

Nik huffed out an unamused laugh. “Still think he’s not a raging bitch?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know laurent is here but not prominent, but i very much promise he will begin to be a center part of the story starting next chapter. 
> 
> the french! (i promise this won't happen much more)
> 
> (1) “À moins que cette tasse de café ne soit pour moi, il n'y a aucune raison pour que vous vous teniez ici.”
> 
> Unless that cup of coffee is for me, there is no reason for you to be standing here.
> 
> (2) and (3) Damen had a lot of reactions to that. The main part of him wanted to laugh, that kind of laugh that comes out as a huff of air from his nose, and say something, something like, ‘This coffee isn’t for you, but my room has a coffee machine that’ll do a great job if you want to check it out.’ The other part of Damen wanted to say something of the same tone as his, something in French just to cause a reaction, something like, ‘Surpris, vous pouvez même me voir ici depuis ce grand cheval sur lequel vous êtes,’ or ask ‘Portez-vous de l'or pour montrer votre personnalité scintillante ou pour cacher votre merde?’ But instead of doing any of that, saying any of that, Damen just stared, taking in the way he walked as though he was gliding, taking in the hard pull of his otherwise full mouth, taking in the single strand of blond hair that had fallen out of his artfully done do and instead was swinging in front of those blue eyes. 
> 
> (2) Surprised you can even see me standing here from that high horse you're on.  
> (3) Do you wear gold to show off your glittering personality or to hide your shitty one?
> 
> thank you again so so so so very much for reading. i'm having so much fun writing.


	4. Chapter 4

The next day, their walk to the gallery was accompanied by rain. It wasn’t a hard rain, much more of a drizzle, but it left the sidewalks darkened, the population outside scarce, and the tops of Damen and Nik’s shoes wet.

“Is today going to be like yesterday?” Damen asked from underneath the black umbrella.

“Essentially,” said Nik. “We’re not getting there until eight o’clock because they don’t need to introduce us, and I know we’re photographing a different line than the gold label, but everything else will be the same.”

“Why aren’t you doing the gold label again?”

“They want to see how we work with a bolder color as opposed to the shine of metallics. The lighting to capture the two is so different and it will be a really good way to gage if the photographers know what they’re doing.”

They turned a corner and narrowly missed colliding with a man wearing a suit and holding a cup of coffee. Though they did avoid such a disaster, their umbrellas got briefly intertwined, allowing for rain to fall on them while exposed to the elements. Damen’s right shoulder took most of the water. Unperturbed, Damen shook it off and they got back to their steady pace.

“I remember the first time you really had to work with color,” Damen said.

“Do you?” Nik asked with an amused raise of his brow.

“I do,” said Damen. “Vihaan was getting married. We were invited, of course, and he wanted to hire you as the wedding photographer. You tried to decline, saying that you didn’t have enough experience to be responsible for such a day, but Vihaan insisted.” The gallery was just ahead now and through the windows they could see a few people walking around. “We were about three weeks away from the wedding and you started to freak out about all the color that would be at an Indian wedding. So, instead of letting you freak out, I scheduled a trip for us.”

“Old San Juan,” Nik said.

“Old San Juan,” Damen repeated with a smile. “Puerto Rico had so much color for you to practice with. It wasn’t any surprise that your photos for Vihaan’s wedding turned out as good as they did.”

As he opened the door to the gallery, Nik said, “They wouldn’t have if it wasn’t for you.”

“Not true,” Damen argued. They both shook off the umbrellas as much as they could before closing them and letting the door close behind them. “They would have turned out great no matter what. I just,” Damen trailed off, looking for the right thing to say, “gave you the placebo you needed to think you could take those kinds of photos.”

There were more people here than there were yesterday, but they both decided that was because of the hour later start time for the photographers. Much like yesterday, however, was where people were. Damen recognized their friend Vannes from yesterday, standing at the beverage station with another delicate black stir stick in hand, stirring it clockwise while she chatted with Audin. Across the way, Talik couldn’t take her eyes off of the female designer, the camera in Talik’s hands long forgotten in its importance. Charls, who Nik had said was even cheerier than he had seemed when Damen saw him, was in the back at the makeup vanities, his joyous laugh carrying through the echoing gallery brightly. Juerre and Guilliame were huddled by the curtain the photographers had disappeared behind the day before, no doubt speaking in French, and, from the fiddling of Guilliame’s fidgety hands, talking something serious; probably gossiping about which photographers wouldn’t get picked for the show. Then they saw a flash of red.

“There’s the answer on what bold color you’re going to be dealing with today,” Damen said. The redhead, whom they had learned yesterday was named Ancel (courtesy only of his agent pleading at him about something) was prancing around with a confidence unlike any of the others, already dressed in clothes that matched the fire of his hair. They seemed to prefer him in sheer fabrics, or maybe he preferred himself in them, but he was wearing a shirt that wasn’t a shirt at all, but red fishnet fabric that went from his neck to the tops of his ribs and all the way down each arm, cinching tight right at the wrists. His pants, shiny red leather, were no doubt similarly cinched around his ankles if the red thigh-high boots he had on were any indication. But the most striking was the simplistic styling of his red hair and the red liner winged on his eyelids.

“At least it wasn’t something too bright, like yellow or something,” Nik said. He adjusted the camera back over his shoulder, heaved a sigh, and looked at Damen. “I should go start fiddling with my camera again. All my settings are going to need adjusted.”

“Go,” Damen said with a jut of his chin. “I’ll go make a fool of myself again. After a coffee, of course.

“Right.” Nik stepped once then immediately turned to face Damen again. “If you see Laurent anytime in the next hour, try not to sexually harass him. He’s the one person here who can really make or break me. Him wanting to rip your dick off so you’ll stop thinking with it will definitely have him wanting to do the latter.”

“I have never sexually harassed anyone in my life,” Damen argued, sounding utterly indigent.

“No,” Nik said after some consideration, “but you’ve pursued and never been told “No” a day in your life. Laurent doesn’t seem like a “Yes” kind of guy.”

Damen waved him off, ignoring the call of, “Damen, I’m being serious!” and made his way over to get himself a coffee. After a minute, he didn’t see so much as hear Nik stomp away in a huff of fond annoyance. He was smiling to himself when Vannes said, “And how did your friend survive yesterday, Mr. Influencer?”

She had a smug grin on her face, something that seemed permanent in her disposition, but Damen met it with a steady gaze. “He did more than fine. How are you today, Ms. Vannes?”

“I’m quite well,” she said. It was obvious that she made note of how quickly he shifted the conversation. “I’m reminiscing while seeing pieces from one of our older lines running around here. It speaks volumes into how we’ve changed.”

“How old is this line?” Damen asked.

Vannes hummed. “It was from a winter line we launched three years ago. Many of the models that were here for that line have left the business. The ones still with us have different measurements than they did then. In turn, it’s been a puzzle refitting things this morning.”

The coffee maker, just as yesterday, hissed and steamed.

“Many of the models have left the business?” Damen asked. “Is there often a high turnover rate in modeling? I feel like the same girls have been walking for Victoria’s Secret for the last decade.”

“You would compare this to Victoria’s Secret,” Vannes muttered. “Etoile is predominantly a youth modeling agency. Our models normally range from only the ages of fifteen to twenty. After that, our models’ contracts are up and not renewed.”

“Fifteen? That’s young,” Damen said.

“Laurent was signed on when he was thirteen.” Vannes placed her red mug onto the table. “Laurent is Etoile’s star.”

“Yeah, I got that,” Damen said, his smile telling. “I saw him yesterday.”

Vannes hummed again. “Well, enjoy it. He’s turning twenty-one this year. And I highly doubt he’ll be renewing his contract.”

“Why wouldn’t he? He’s the owner’s nephew, right? There have to be some kind of familial advantage that would let him do this another few years if he wanted to.”

“He’s a spoiled and entitled brat,” Vannes said matter of fact. “Over the years, he’s gotten mouthier, refused to listen to his uncle or the Etoile board on what he needs to do to represent us. He won’t re-sign because he doesn’t want to be told what to do.”

Charls voice, like yesterday, interrupted to ring out through the gallery. “Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by thanking you all for such a lovely day yesterday. All your work is much appreciated. None of our designs mean anything if we don’t have the stylists, artists, photographers, assistants, and, of course, models to make them magical.” Vannes waved at Damen with a fluttering of her fingers as she made her way over to where Charls was standing. Audin was doing the same. “Today we have dusted off one of our past winter lines to see how our photographers do with bold color. The day will go much as it did yesterday, with preliminary group photos followed by a rotation of our models in small groups or duos. After a discussion with our photographers yesterday, we are going to double the time of rotation, however. This will, hopefully, allow you all to get to know one another much better and will allow our photographers opportunity to get the best photos. Are there any outstanding questions or concerns to address before we begin?” Charls paused, turning around the room in search for a raised hand, and when no one responded, he clapped his hands together and said, “Then we will begin shortly! Our beautiful models are almost ready.”

“The models might almost be ready, but I’m not,” Nik said to Damen as Damen wandered back over.

“You’re fine. Just like yesterday, you’re fine,” Damen said.

“They’re not having me by the windows for the individual shots today. They’ve moved me over there,” Nik said, pointing over to the wall farthest from the windows he had been at yesterday. There were three columns, large and white, Corinthian styled, and nothing more besides the shadows they casted on the floor.

“So, adjust your settings and kill it like you did before,” Damen said. Nik shot him a glare.

“What do you think I’m trying to do?”

Damen put his hands up defensively. “Alright, I’ll leave you to it.”

Walking around felt different than it had yesterday. Already Damen had expectations as to what he would see. The biggest difference today, he noted when he was by the clothing carts, was that there were more clothes leftover than there had been yesterday. Vannes hadn’t been lying when she said a lot of the clothes didn’t fit the current models’ measurements. He was running a hand over a pair of large red hooped earrings when he heard a click of heels. It wasn’t hard for him to realize how like yesterday this was, him at the tables near the vanities.

Laurent was talking to another model, one of the pretty ones with honeyed eyes. The boy was talking with a smile and Laurent was smiling indulgently back and his smile would have been the most distracting thing, was the most distracting thing, but it also drew attention to the other most distracting thing which was the red lipstick on his mouth, accentuating its fullness with the adroitly smeared bit at the right corner as though it was daring Damen to look anywhere else.

Still, he eventually did look anywhere else; he had to look at what Laurent was wearing because it was so excessive, so demanding of attention. The red lipstick on his mouth was the only color on his face. It made the color all the more sensual, the appearance of it looking kissed off and ruined. His hair, like Ancel’s, was simplistically styled and that in itself drew more attention to the less than simplistic ruby necklace on his collarbones. It was a large piece of jewelry, the beginning of it a choker that started low on his neck before scooping down to rest on the flat of his chest. Its width was at least four inches at the curve where his neck met shoulder. Damen wasn’t certain how much a necklace like that would go for, but if he had learned truly anything in the last few days it was that Etoile wasn’t cheap; this thing easily had to cost more than ten thousand dollars. But even it wasn’t enough to take away from the red suit Laurent was wearing. The suit jacket, sans shirt, was buttoned just up to the button between the top portion of Laurent’s ribcage. It was a single-breasted jacket with notched lapels and angled pockets, and it was fitted like a glove, so tight to Laurent’s body that Damen could make out the precise movements of his shoulder blades underneath the fabric. There was no vent to the back of the jacket, and it fell far enough to hide the pockets of both the front and back of the pants he was wearing. Even with the pockets hidden, it wasn’t difficult to notice three things: that the pants were made of the exact same material as the jacket, that the pants were tight too, and that Laurent had the most delicately shaped ankles on the planet.

In another life, one where Damen would have most definitely ran into Laurent on his own terms, Damen would have spent the last two days working all of his charms, the exact ones that have yet to fail him, just to see if he could get the blond underneath him in bed. But in this life, the one where Laurent was an integral part to Nik’s first break in the photography industry, Damen knew he had to behave. So, he did.

If Laurent had noticed him staring, he made no effort to disengage such actions. In fact, Laurent seemed to not know Damen was standing in the vicinity at all. After the honey-eyed model had finished talking about whatever had been on his mind, Laurent had said a few words with that same indulgent smile and then turned toward Charls, beckoning the model to follow.

Damen whistled lowly as he approached Nik again. “That blond, man.”

“You didn’t talk to him, did you?”

“Have some faith in me, Nik,” Damen said. “I didn’t say a word.”

“I feel like I need to reiterate it to you as often as possible,” Nik said.

“I promise not to jeopardize this,” Damen said, hand over his heart. “I’ll wait until the big fashion week is over before I tell him all the things I’d like to do with him.”

Nik made a face. “Gross.”

He was at the columns and Damen stepped to the side to allow him to test a few pictures. He tried one, two, three, and he must have done something different on each one with a simple twist of a dial, because he stared at his screen for a few minutes, analyzing the photos. “Hey,” he said after a minute, walking back up to Damen with the screen of the camera gestured out, “doesn’t this look like some of those pictures we took back home a few years ago?”

Damen took the camera and smiled at the memory, and right as he was opening up to say so, Nik’s hand clasped around his wrist in a vice-like grip. “Damen, we haven’t taken any pictures for online. Shit, Damen, I’ve been so focused on this –”

“Nik, relax,” Damen laughed, unlatching Nik’s hand. “I took our scheduled stuff from Italy and changed it to post every other day instead of every day. We’re good for another two weeks. In the meantime, I’ve still been posting my workouts on my story. Those always seem to do well.”

“I forgot you were still working out at hellish early hours,” Nik said. His face screamed of relief.

“Parisian sunrises are pretty amazing. You should try to get up and see one before we leave,” Damen said.

Nik was better after that, better enough to start fiddling with his camera again. It was right after he had taken two more pictures that a clicking of heels and the shuffling of feet alerted them both to movement back at the center of the room. Sure enough, all the models were gathering together in the same places they had yesterday, Laurent, Ancel, and the green eyed one near the front.

“Look at our models,” Charls announced loudly, drawing attention from those still straggling. “This red was such a bold statement for our winter line, and we were thrilled to dust off its vibrancy. If we could have our photographers gather, we are now ready to begin!”

The group photos went just like yesterday; the models all had a unique energy and so did the five photographers. It was fun to watch Nik at first as he tried to find what angle worked best with this coloring, this lighting, and then when he found it, Damen’s gaze was allowed to drift and it found Laurent’s mouth.

Like yesterday too, Damen was struck by how Laurent posed or, more specifically, how he didn’t seem to pose at all. Ancel was exaggerated with his body, moving it in the obvious way meant for seduction. The green eyed one looked less practiced, but was doing the same, arching his back and drawing attention to the jut of his hip bones. And it worked for the both of them and the others, it did, but Laurent did his own nonexaggerated thing and it was effortless and beautiful.

Damen still couldn’t stop staring at the smudge of red on his mouth.

“I can feel your staring and it’s not even at me,” Nik mumbled. Damen turned his head so no one else would see his grin.

“Sorry.”

“You don’t sound it.”

Charls rushed forward to adjust the collar on the green eyed one’s shirt (Aimeric was his name) and then he rushed right back, his eyes shining as he took in what he had created. Then he announced it was time for the photographers to move to their designated individual places. Nik started to pack up his camera bag when Talik came up to him, and Damen, with a furrow between her brows.

“I’m in your spot from yesterday,” she said. “And I can’t figure out the lighting with the windows though. How did you manage it yesterday?”

“Here are the settings I used,” Nik said, showing her a sheet of paper stuffed in his bag. He had written down the numbers.

She thanked him and left, and Damen huffed. “Giving away your secrets?”

“It’s tough lighting to shoot in over there.”

“Well, wait to give away all your secrets until after you’ve been chosen to go to the Olympics,” Damen said.

Having had already figured out everything for his new place, Nik found it easy to set up. Damen, instead, watched the other photographers set up. He watched Talik adjust her settings to what Nik had shown her, he watched Jeurre’s manager talk animatedly to him under the crystal chandelier, and he watched Charls direct the models in the same groups and duos they had been in yesterday. Laurent went to Hendric first.

The first group sent Nik’s way was beautiful and dressed in silks, silks that draped and flowed like the wind was always caught in their weight. The twenty minutes gave Nik the time to actually pose the models in a multitude of ways, to space them between the columns, to take pictures in the shadows the columns casted, to take pictures of brown eyes against the white stone.

Charls called for the groups to move and Nik was graced with the presence of Ancel and Aimeric. They were a startling duo, Ancel’s pin straight red hair against Aimeric’s brown curls, but both with green eyes. Aimeric lacked Ancel’s confidence but made up for it with the aristocratic curves of his face. Nik asked for them to stand back-to-back, asked for Ancel to bend at the knees ever so slightly so he was at equal height with Aimeric and they could angle their faces up toward the light. Ancel said, with a sly smile on his face, “You two are by far the most handsome strangers I’ve ever had photograph me,” and Nik didn’t say anything other than a low hum of acknowledgment. And when Charls called for the groups to move, Ancel waved flirtatiously as he had the day before.

Then there was Laurent.

His blue eyes were cool as he assessed the columns, assessed the light and the dark, assessed Nik and the camera in his hands.

“Well?” Laurent asked after a moment’s pause.

“Can we do something like what we did yesterday, with you behind one of the columns?”

Laurent moved in acquiesce, his feet quiet against the marble floor, and Nik took a picture of Laurent’s jeweled hand resting on the stone before anything else. They did a few variations there, some photos focused on the contrast of the bold red against the minimalistic background, others focused on the way Laurent could lean a shoulder against the white stone and look more becoming than anyone had a right to. It was when Nik motioned for Laurent to step forward that the blond spoke again.

“I heard your real name is Nikandros,” he said, pressing the palm of his head into the grooves of the column that were equally tall as his own eye level. “Is that true?”

“Yes,” Nik said simply.

“Very Greek,” Laurent said. He placed all his weight on the column, bearing it between his shoulder blades. The vent of his jacket was so tight that it didn’t lean away from his body as he arched away from the column. Instead it stayed in place, the lines of it all so clean, even down to the curves of his heels.

“And did you grow up in Greece your entire life?” Laurent asked. Nik snapped another photo.

“Yes. I went to the same schools my parents attended in their youth.”

“Why leave?”

Damen could see it in Nik’s shoulders that he wasn’t sure what to make of what was happening. Damen wasn’t quite sure what to make of hearing Laurent speak; his voice was like cold water splashed on your face after a day in scorching heat. He also wasn’t quite sure what to make of Laurent’s line of questioning.

“I – we – decided that there was more to see of the world than our city by ocean. We wanted to see it before we ended up like our parents, old and sheltered from sights different than the ones we were born surrounded by,” Nik said.

“By ‘we’ I assume you’re talking about your friend over there,” Laurent said as though Damen wasn’t in hearing-distance. “Friend? Brother? More?” Nik glared at his camera screen and adjusted a singular setting.

“Friends,” Damen supplied in answer, watching Nik get distracted. Laurent’s cool blue gaze landed on him. The red he was bathed in made his eyes look brighter.

“And you must be the face of the two,” Laurent said.

“The face?” Damen asked, taking a step closer. Nik was still fiddling with the camera.

“You two are the,” Laurent paused, “ _social media influences_.”

Damen couldn’t help but laugh, even if his laugh was an incredulous one. “What is with you all and –”

“I had been trying to deduce which of the five of my uncle’s latest group of experimentees was the Instagram photographer, but I soon realized that looking at the photographers themselves would never do. I needed to look at their acquaintances.” Laurent had lowered himself to the ground without any direction, splaying his long, red-clad legs out and bending one just enticingly enough to look like temptation. “Everything about you screams it.”

“ _‘Everything?’_ ” Damen asked. “How could everything about me scream something like that? Especially when it’s not true.”

For the first time since the shoot had started, Laurent smiled, and it wasn’t kind. He looked at Damen under blond eyelashes then spent a moment consciously changing the smile to something alluring. The entire display was magic. “You’re either extremely confident in yourself or extremely oblivious about the way life works.” He tilted his head to show off the column of his throat. “Or both.”

“We travel the world,” Damen said, taking another step closer. “We can’t help what it’s turned into, but it hasn’t changed us. We’re still doing this for us and no one else.”

“Everyone is always doing something for the approval of someone else. Even if they don’t think they are, they are.”

“You seem young to be this cynical,” Damen said.

“You seem old to be relying on teenagers on social media for your career,” Laurent said right back. He moved again, laying down, spreading his hair out like a halo on the marble floor, and turning to look at the camera.

“Can you lower your left arm?” Nik asked. Laurent complied.

Damen realized he was biting the inside of his cheek to keep from speaking. He was pretty sure that lashing out at Laurent would have the same effect as trying to come on to him, and both of those ended with him and Nik packing their bags in two days.

“What is your backup plan?” Laurent asked to neither of them in particular. “Social media is currently what is bringing in the money, but social media didn’t exist in this capacity ten years ago. In another few years, something newer will take over in rank.”

“We haven’t thought that far,” Nik said. He snapped another photo.

Laurent smiled again. “I don’t doubt that.”

Damen ran a hand through his hair and breathed out a laugh, the kind of laugh that was only a breath of air out of his nostrils, and when his self-control was finally slipping away, Charls called for the models to move once more. Laurent, elegant, got off the floor and walked away.

Nik shot Damen a look. “That was unbearable.”

“Yeah.”

Nik got a lovely group of five models to photograph next and, to Nik’s surprise, one of the models, one with a confidence at a level near Ancel’s, suggested they lift the smallest of the five, a beautiful sandy haired one, up over their heads. Nik thought that sounded wonderful as long as they felt safe doing so and he had them stand center between two of the columns and lift. Erasmus, the sandy haired one, giggled. Their shadows were complementary to the shadows of the columns.

To not disrupt anything, there was a rule while the shoot was going on and that was no one in or out of the entry doors. There was everything anyone could need in this main part of the gallery and the entry doors almost always allowed a gust of wind to enter that could ruin the models’ hair. Everyone knew the rule and there was usually someone outside to ensure no one broke that rule. So, when the door opened, everyone noticed.

It was the child from Etoile’s office.

The child was wearing an outfit that cost at least as much as anything any of the models were wearing and the curls of his hair looked to be done professionally. He strutted through the gallery like he owned it, all arrogant in a way that betrayed his age. There were some looks thrown his way, but most seemed familiar or even expectant.

Damen watched, curiously, as the child walked with that never-faltering arrogance all the way up to Laurent. With a petulance befitting his age, he crossed his arms over his tiny chest, and tapped his heeled shoe on the ground. Laurent, for his part, must not have seen him or didn’t want to see him because he kept doing what he had been doing as the child had walked in: posing with his head tilted up toward the crystal chandelier. It didn’t seem to bother him that the child was ruining his shot, not until the child tugged on the sleeve of Laurent’s expensive suit jacket.

Finally, Laurent gave the child his attention. They both wore similar frowns on their faces, near mirrors of one another. The child said something, and his face said that whatever he said wasn’t kind. Laurent said something in return and his face looked the same. The child said something again and Laurent motioned at the door. With a huff, the child turned to go, but not before Laurent ruffled his perfectly curled hair. It was obvious it wasn’t a normal sign of affection and was only done to incite anger. It worked. The child swatted hard at Laurent’s arm.

“Hey,” Nik said, getting Damen’s attention. Damen waited until the child was walking out the entry doors before he turned back. “Can we go out and get drinks tonight?”

“Name the time. I’ll find us a good place,” Damen said. He was already reaching for his phone. The suggestion sounded more like a plea.

Charls announced for the models to move one last time.

There was a bar called Danico just two blocks away from the gallery. Neither Damen nor Nik wanted to bother stopping by their room, they just wanted to go. And when they got there, it was moody and alive, and they grabbed two perfectly empty stools at the bar. Nik, with his camera still in hand, didn’t even look at the menu. Damen ordered them both something strong, carbonated, and refreshing.

“Tomorrow is the last day of shooting,” Damen said, knowing Nik knew.

“Yeah,” Nik said. “I’ve never been under pressure like this for photography. The last time I felt like this was when we were kids and playing sports.”

“They’re going to choose you,” Damen said.

“I don’t think Laurent likes us very much.” They both smiled politely as their drinks were put in front of them. Nik drank a mouthful and then another.

“Well, I don’t think he likes anyone very much,” Damen laughed. “I think the playing ground is still even there.”

They sat in silence for a good ten minutes, decompressing and taking in the atmosphere of the bar. There were some beautiful people wandering around, all in nightlife wear, and Damen had that look in his eyes that earned him a not-so-easy punch in the arm from Nik.

“I’m trying not to be overconfident, but I guess I should start researching other fashion weeks,” Nik said.

“That’s not overconfidence speaking. That’s reality.”

“Whatever you want to call it, I still have no idea what I’m actually doing.”

“We’ve done really well at faking it this long,” Damen said with a grin.

“What are we even going to do for the two full weeks before fashion week?” Nik asked, ignoring him.

“There’s plenty to do in Paris,” Damen said. “And we haven’t even explored once. We’ll find more than enough to keep us busy for two weeks.”

It was easy to fall into other conversation after that. Damen brought out his phone and they looked at stats and messages and scheduled posts from their last trip in Italy. Then they talked about the phone calls they had both ignored from their families.

“Do they even know we’re here in Paris?” Nik asked, laughing. They had also ordered two more drinks.

“I have no idea,” Damen said, laughing too.

“Let’s tell them,” Nik said. He motioned for Damen to stand.

“Oh, come on,” Damen said. Nik motioned again. “Aren’t you tired of taking pictures?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, everyone! thank you so much for reading. when i first started writing this chapter, looking at my outline and all, i didn't think i was going to get it beyond 2-3k and then i hit that before i got to the main part i wanted to get to in this chapter. i hope this lives up to any expectations that anyone had and i hope laurent was. everything he needed to be.
> 
> i've got three weeks before online classes start so i'm hoping to get two, three, or maybe even four chapters done, but i also don't control laurent and he's going to be here all the time now lol. i also am starting work again so let's cross fingers things work out there.
> 
> i hope everyone is staying safe and healthy! i can't thank you all enough.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, everyone! sorry for the long time in between chapters, it's been. a time. there's been a lot going on, the most pressing being my little sister having an emergency surgery to cut out a cyst on her throat. turns out there were two cysts, actually, and she's in some pretty serious recovery which makes sense considering she had her throat slit open. i'm back at work, back in classes, and i'm still very much in love with writing these boys.
> 
> thank you to everyone who has read this far and who has been kind enough to kudo and comment along the way. it means the world to me <3 i hope this chapter sets up some exciting stuff for you guys.

“You’re going to put a hole in the floor of the car if you keep that up,” Damen said.

Nik was angled to face the left passenger side window and his right foot was the culprit of Damen’s warning; it hadn’t stopped tapping repeatedly and loudly since Nik had slid into his seat. Jord, who was driving them again, didn’t seem bothered by it, but Damen was bothered. The sound was distracting and made it hard to think.

“You need to relax,” Damen tried again. He got a grunt in response this time.

Luckily for Damen’s patience, it wasn’t a long drive to Etoile’s headquarters. The unlucky one because of that was Nik who simply didn’t have enough time to compose his nerves. In fact, the only lucky thing for him was that he also didn’t have enough time to worry himself to death. The car was being parked before Damen could find the words for another failed attempt at comfort or reassurance.

Damen was out of the car first and he watched Jord exit with mild interest. Would Jord have anything to say about this meeting if they asked? What had the previous years been like? Who came up with this system in the first place? Did the owner simply want to better the lives of unknown photographers or was it an idea proposed to him by somebody else? In hindsight, Damen thought as he took in the extravagance of Etoile once again, these were questions they should have asked long ago. And now, as Nik finally found his legs and climbed out of the car, there wasn’t time. Jord led them in.

Nik seemed composed enough as they strolled through the front doors. Anyone looking at him from the outside wouldn’t have guessed how he had just been in the car. But, looking down, Damen could see the grooves in Nik’s palm from where he had dug his own fingernails into the skin. The grooves were so deep that they stayed a stark white the entire time they walked toward the elevator.

They were both dressed much nicer for this meeting than they had been for their last one. For them, that meant they weren’t repping all athletic-wear upon entrance to one of the largest modeling and fashion agencies in the world. Jord, still leading them, seemed to have been right that first day though because no one gave them any more or less attention walking in dressed in button-up shirts than they had when the two had been donned in bright orange sweatshirts.

Once at the elevator, Jord abandoned them with notsomuch as a ‘good luck’ or ‘goodbye’ and they were off and up to the top floor. There was no petulant child awaiting them and, now knowing the way, it was easy to turn and sit in the available chairs nearest the office. There was an actual assistant at the desk this time and he looked up at them before glancing nonchalantly at a calendar. That must have confirmed who they were because he asked no questions and never once looked at them, not until they had been sitting for ten minutes. Then he said, “You can go in now.”

In the hours before leaving the hotel, Damen had asked Nik if he had found it odd that the man who owns all of this hadn’t been to a single minute of the sessions. Nik hadn’t seemed bothered, though he probably had had other more pressing things on his mind, and had cited all of the close right-hand people — especially those like Charls and Vannes and Herode — who had been there for nearly all of the three sessions. It had been easy to shrug off, at least for Damen. After all, he didn’t know anything about this business. But seeing the man behind the desk for the first time in five days, and for only the second time since their arrival in Paris, was jarring.

Damen noticed different things about the man this time than he had before. Sure, he still noticed the fineness of the man’s clothes and the air in which he held himself, but given the newer context of him being Laurent’s uncle, Damen noticed all the ways in which the two differed. Laurent, whose beauty had been startling, was nothing like the man sitting in front of Damen and Nik. Where Laurent was soft, his uncle was rough; where Laurent was sharp, his uncle was firm; where Laurent was head-turning, his uncle was refined; where Laurent was callous, his uncle was open; where Laurent’s words were rude, his uncle’s were welcoming. Had Damen not been told about Laurent’s familial advantage in the industry, he would have never made such a connection. It seemed impossible.

There wasn’t time to linger on thoughts of Laurent though. The sight in front of them was dazzling. All of Nik’s photographs from the three days of sessions were arranged out on the desk in piles, each pile dedicated to a different subject on a different day. Damen was blinded by golds and reds and more golds glittering from the shiny photography prints.

“There’s not much of a preface I can make here,” Laurent’s uncle began, his smile affable. “I’ve been informed by all three of my designers individually that I simply must hire you on for our upcoming event. None of them will take no for an answer and, with praise that high, I would be a fool to not listen.”

Silently, Damen had to commend Nik’s continued control. Though his eyes widened, nothing else about him gave away his surprise or relief at the man’s words. Instead, after a beat, then two, Nik breathed out a “Thank you,” before clearing his throat and following it with, “I would be honored. Truly. Thank you.”

“No need to thank me. Your talent speaks volumes in support of my designer’s words. You will be a most excellent addition to our team.”

He was fiddling with one of the photos, a group one from the first day. Nik had captured it as large cumulus clouds had covered the sun and changed the lighting in the room for only but a minute. In the photo, gold shimmered off of each individual like they were the newly discovered pieces from the inside of a treasure chest. But it was Laurent who had remained in the light and he shone brightest of all, like a crown of jewels amongst lesser coins.

Nik didn’t know what to say and neither did Damen. The silence spoke for them and Laurent’s uncle, for his part, seemed content to let them absorb the news. Then, after an indiscernable about of time, he huffed out a quick laugh and asked, “Is this really so surprising?”

“I mean,” Nik started, doing his very best to ignore Damen’s excited gaze, “yes.”

“Well, it would be wise to not be too surprised. Because your life is about to get very busy leading up into the big show.”

“What can I expect out of the next few weeks?” Nik asked. He seemed to have found his voice, but his eyes were caught on some of his own photos, an expression of almost disbelief that those were his creations out on the table. “The show’s not for another two weeks.”

“This next week won’t have much for you to worry about. There will be a lunch on Friday that will, no doubt, last a few hours, but besides that singular event, this upcoming week is free for you to do as you please. I will give you a map of the city with several important locations to Etoile marked on it should you wish to familiarize yourself with them. The real work, however, begins Monday morning of the following week. That week will be filled with meetings, dinners, rehearsals, parties,” the man trailed, reaching for another folder. Like the one they received five days earlier, it was expertly organized. Its most eye-catching feature was a calendar for the month which got progressively busier the closer they got to the beginnings of fashion week. “We have many photography sessions planned, as you can see. That is for the benefit of both you and our models. Here at Etoile, we have found the photographs become much more intriguing when a relationship is built between photographer and subject. So, whilst it will give you opportunity to hone in on your already quite successful skills, it will also establish that foundation we so desperately want.”

“Will we be interacting with the models at the other events, like the dinners and parties?” Nik asked. “I fear I won’t be able to achieve what you’re searching for if we’re only doing photography sessions. I tend to zone in on the process.”

“Not all of the models will be at the dinners. Etoile’s faces, as we call them, will be present at every event, but our newer models or our models not intended for the spotlight quite yet will not be in attendance. In all honesty, we’re most looking for your relationship to grow with Laurent, Ancel, and Aimeric.”

“Laurent, your nephew?” Damen couldn’t help but interject. Laurent’s uncle smiled.

“I see you’ve heard of our familial connection,” he said. “Don’t think of it as him, or myself, trying to hide anything. The two of us do try to keep as little conversation around our relation as possible as to not incite the chants of favoritism. And as you’ve seen Laurent, I trust that you are aware I am not simply playing favorites. He is quite beautiful. In fact, it was his beauty that compelled me to move from fashion into both fasion and modeling nearing a decade ago now.”

“He works well in front of the camera,” Nik said, politely.

“He has since he was young. Too young, if I’m being honest,” the man lamented. “When his parents died and he was turned into my care, I had no intention of bringing him near this world of couture fashion. It can be such a cruel world. But he was drawn to it and it allowed us to maintain a close relationship, something he desperately needed after all his — and my own — loss. It ended up being such a wonderful thing at first. He was able to come to work with me, he was inspirational in the growth of Etoile, and he made a name for himself. If only he had stayed as lovely as he had been in his youth.”

“He’s still very lovely,” Damen said, interjecting again. Nik elbowed him.

“Oh, yes, appearance-wise he is. But, as I said, the world of fashion is cruel and it made him cruel. I’m sure you witnessed some of his callous behavior.” Neither Damen or Nik confirmed, but they didn’t deny it either. Laurent’s uncle flashed them a sad smile. “It pains me that I couldn’t protect his innocence. I had thought I was doing the right thing in allowing him to choose his path in life but…” he trailed.

There was an awkward pause that went on just long enough to make it more awkward. Damen broke it.

“So are these dinners and rehearsals black-tie? Because I’ll need to go shopping.”

“Don’t worry yourself with attire,” Laurent’s uncle said. “As it is an Etoile event, we have all of our guests wear Etoile clothes. Someone, Jord no doubt, will take your measurements sometime this week.”

“It won’t,” Damen started, before pausing to find the right words, “it won’t be clothes like what the models wear, will it? I mean, they’re beautiful but —”

“No, no, no. Your clothes will be simple tuxedos. I’ll only allow Charls to perhaps find you both a burgundy or deep blue tuxedo but,” he scanned them both, “given your size, that may not be possible.” Damen, for his part, grinned.

“Understood.”

With the folder and its calendar and other contents in possession, Damen and Nik left after another ‘Thank you’ and ‘No need to thank me’ exchange. The secretary was gone from the desk and in the lobby no one still paid them any mind. Damen was grateful because he had a stupid smile on his face that wouldn’t leave; he risked a look at Nik and was thrilled to see the exact same expression. The moment the door to Etoile closed behind them, all bets were off. Damen launched all his weight at Nik in a clambering hug and Nik hugged him right back.

“Are you proud of my self-control?” Damen asked, stepping back to bounce on the balls of his feet once, twice.

“I am,” Nik said, still smiling.

“I was going to hug you as soon as he told you, but I didn’t.”

“I know. I’m very proud.”

“I’m proud of you,” Damen said. “I mean, I knew from the beginning that you could do it, that you would do it, but I also know you were waiting for this moment to believe it yourself. But it’s here now and I’m so proud of you. But, for the next week at least, it’s time to focus on me.”

“Good news, I take it?”

Jord looked nonchalent from where he was leaning against the car, but he had a miniscule smile on his face that betrayed everything else.

“Maybe not good news for you,” Nik said. “You’re going to be seeing more of us for the next little bit.”

“You’re not the worst people I’ve had to drive around,” Jord said. It was as much as a ‘Congratulations’ he was going to give apparantly.

The car ride back to the hotel was the opposite of their car ride earlier. Both Damen and Nik were chatting and dragging Jord into conversation and Jord was smiling and glancing at them in the rearview mirror. But, like earlier, it wasn’t a long journey and there wasn’t a lot of time to harass Jord who seemed both amused and a tad bit unsure of them both.

“Jord,” Damen started to ask. Jord had just parked the car and Damen had one foot out of the door. “Since our next week is free, do you have any recommendations for things to do in Paris?”

Jord seemed to really have to think about the question. “I don’t get out much. I know it’s a cliche, but the Seine really does give a stunning view of the city. And you can never get a bad meal at any of the smaller bakeries. But that means one that’s affordable. Any place trying to charge you over five euro for anything is a tourist spot thriving off of ignorance. Then again, that’s mostly aimed at the Americans.”

“Thanks for the heads-up,” Damen said.

Nik had already gone up to their room and when Damen entered, he heard Nik ordering a bottle of champagne from room service. Damen raised his eyebrows and kept them raised until Nik saw his expression.

“What?” Nik asked. “This is a cause for me to celebrate, don’t you think?”

“Definitely. But it’s not even noon. Bit early, don’t you think?”

“It’s not for right now. We can stuff it in the fridge and pop it open tonight. I just didn’t want to have to wait on room service tonight. You know it takes longer the later you call.”

“Remember that time we were staying in a real busy hotel when we flew out to California and we ordered room service and it took so long that we emptied the minibar and fell asleep on the balcony?”

“I do. That was the exact incident I was thinking of.”

“Well,” Damen said, his walk over to the singular desk in the room suddenly determined, “we have bigger things to be thinking about. We have a city to explore.” On the desk were maps Damen had taken from the concierge and had marked up to hell and back with circles and lines and all other kinds of strategic symbols Nik had come to know quite well over the years.

“What do you have in mind?”

“We have to hit the big stuff; the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame, Arc de Triomphe, even head to Versailles. But I’ve been looking for some smaller places, the real parts of Paris. The problem is that there are so many places and things to do that I don’t even really know where to start.”

“Have you tried talking to anyone? That’s our usual strategy,” Nik said, coming over to look at the maps.

“I asked Jord before I came up here, but he said he doesn’t get out much. He said to do the Seine river rides for some pretty sights.”

“I doubt asking anyone from Etoile where to go would be our best bet,” Nik said. “They’re in an entirely different universe than most people living in the rest of the world.”

“They really are,” Damen said with a little chuckle. “Speaking of Etoile, have I said congratulations again? Because if not, seriously, congratulations, Nik. Everything you do is so far over my head, this more than anything you’ve ever done, but I know enough to know just how big this is. I can’t say congratulations enough.”

“Thanks,” Nik said. He ducked his head and when he lifted it back up, he was smiling. “I know I’ve told you before, but I don’t give two shits about fashion. But I do care about the colors and the process of honing in on those details in the clothes. It’s going to make me better and, after this, I’ll have a big event to put down on a resume.”

“And I think this guy will give you a great recommendation should he ever get a call about you,” Damen said.

Both Damen and Nik scanned over the maps still laid flat on the desk. Nik rolled his eyes when he saw the Moulin Rouge circled in red pen, but otherwise they chatted about all the big places they needed to go see in seven days. Their conversation wandered to the Louvre.

“I think we need a whole day for the Louvre,” Damen said, tapping the map three times on the spot. “There are three wings and at least three levels for every wing and the gods only know how many people are going to be there.”

“We could do it Friday. We’re supposed to go to an introductory lunch at Etoile, but nothing more, and Etoile is located only a minute walk from the Louvre,” Nik said.

Damen nodded in agreement before he spoke. “Were you as surprised as I was to hear Laurent’s uncle had raised him?”

“Yeah, a little,” Nik said with a hum. “I don’t think I’m as invested in his personal details as you are, but that wasn’t something I expected. His parents must have died when he was very young.”

“I’m not invested in his personal details,” Damen said. “I just found it surprising, that’s all.”

“Not invested in his personal details,” Nik mumbled. With a forceful throw, he hit Damen in the head with a jacket that had been lying over the back of the chair at the desk. “Come on, get ready. If we don’t go out today, I’ll never hear the end of how we wasted quality exploring time.”

Damen grinned. “Where do you want to go first?”

They had lunch at a French steakhouse called Il Etait Un Square and they both ordered burgers near the size of their fists. While they let their too-big-of-a-lunch digest, they wandered on foot, taking in the people and the sights. Nik, instinctually, snapped a few photos here and there. Eventually their wandering took them to the Seine and Damen chatted amicably with a group of twenty-somethings dancing on a low walkway right at the river’s edge. They caught a taxi to the Eiffel Tower and decided to snap pictures in front of it; the line to wait for the elevator was ridiculously long and neither of them were in the clothes to sweat as they tried to climb 674 steps to the second level. There was just enough time to stop by a nearby café called Carmine Café for a quick espresso before dinner which they had at a bistro called L'Assiette. They had a glass, or three, of wine before they began a journey back to the hotel under Parisian moonlight.

“I don’t know why we had all that wine,” Damen said, his arm slung heavily over Nik’s shoulders. “We still have that bottle of champagne to pop open.”

Luckily for them, they sobered up a bit before they got back because they got lost one, two, five times. A kind taxi driver, seeing them pointing stupidly at street signs before doubling over with laughter, took sympathy on them and drove them back to the hotel all before eleven. Damen tipped him graciously.

They laughed all the way back up to their room, laughing harder as they passed a group of people far drunker than they had been yet, and Nik beelined for the refrigerator he had stuffed the bottle of champagne in as soon as the door opened. It bubbled just a little down the sides, pooling and landing on Nik’s shoes.

“To fashion snobs,” Damen said, raising his glass for a toast. The flutes clinked together, the high note of their meeting musical.

“To fashion snobs,” Nik repeated.

Nik scrolled through photos from the night on his camera and it got them talking, comparing the city with ones they had visited in the past and pointing out the unique things that made it what it is: Paris.

“I still maintain we need to go back to Prague,” Nik said, moving to lean against the open door frame of the balcony. The air outside was just chilly enough that Nik could see his breath. “We weren’t there long enough.”

“You want to know where we weren’t long enough? Australia.”

“We were in Australia plenty long enough.”

“We only went to Sydney! What about Perth or Brisbane or places more inland, like all the national parks and nature reserves? What about ditching Australia altogether and heading over to New Zealand?”

They started arguing, arguing about travel and the timing of travel and Damen was making a very valid point of ‘It is our job’ when Nik quit responding for the sake of squinting at something from the balcony.

“Are you listening to me?” Damen asked when a solid minute went by with no response. He leaned forward from where he was sitting up against the headboard of his bed to pull out a pillow and toss it at Nik, missing him by a foot.

“Yeah, I just,” Nik started, trailing off and squinting harder as though it would make sense of whatever he was staring at. “I think that’s Laurent.”

Damen wasn’t above admitting he ran across the room. He almost slipped on the jacket Nik had hit him in the head with earlier, but he was next to Nik in seconds. Like Nik, he squinted in an attempt to make the vision across the street clearer and when that didn’t work, he moved to the balcony’s railing.

Across the street was an apartment building, another Haussmann building, and almost exactly across from their own room was a figure standing in the door frame of their own balcony illuminated by the warm light of a lamp. It was hard to be certain because they didn’t truly know Laurent that well, but it was definitely a possibility. The blond hair was more gold in the yellow of the light and the person was on the phone and pacing so it was impossible to keep focus in too much, but Damen was sure that aristocratic profile he kept catching glimpses of belonged to Laurent’s model-built face.

“If that is him,” Nik said as Damen continued to stare, “don’t you dare go over there in an attempt to run into him.”

“I think I’ve behaved quite admirably so far,” Damen said. He leaned over the railing, just enough to make him and Nik both woozy.

“Promise me you won’t go over there and attempt to run into him, or attempt to find out if it’s really him.”

“I promise,” Damen said. He was still staring.

Eventually Laurent, or whoever the figure was, left the space of the balcony window and not long after, the light went off. Damen remained leaning against the door frame of their own balcony, enjoying the night air while it got colder and colder and Nik’s voice got sleepier and his conversation more single syllable words like “Yes,” “No,” and “Hmm.” When Nik was finally asleep, Damen took in one more deep and sobering breath before closing the balcony doors and changing into something comfortable. Before making his way back to his own bed, he picked up the pillow he had thrown and fished in his black bookbag for his laptop he carried around for editing YouTube videos.

It wasn’t intentional, but it was intentional, to go to the search bar and type in ‘Laurent DeVere.’

75,909,000 results came up in 0.62 seconds. The first result that came up was an Instagram page (@laurentdevere) with only two posts, both from 2015, and with a quick scroll Damen deduced that that must be Laurent’s only social media account. The second result was a Wikipedia page that Damen clicked on.

There were only five sections on Laurent’s Wikipedia page, each one the ones expected: Early Life, Career, Personal Life, Awards and Nominations, and a whole one just for Etoile. _‘Laurent DeVere (born March 20, 2000) is a French model. In 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019, he was voted “Model of the Year” by industry professionals,’ Damen read. And as much as Damen wanted to click on the Personal Life section, he was drawn to the Early life section which was long and detailed. It read, ‘DeVere was born in Paris, France to politician Aleron DeVere and former Swedish teacher Hennike DeVere (nee Kempt), and was raised in Paris. DeVere had an older brother, Auguste DeVere (born November 9, 1988 and died September, 13, 2013)._

_DeVere’s parents, Aleron and Hennike, were assassinated in a politically motivated assault on June 22, 2013. Aleron had been the President of the National Assembly for three years upon his death. No one has been arrested in the assassination, but there have been several people of interest interrogated. The situation continues to be investigated by the DGSI.’_

After that, it was a rabbit hole Damen got lost within. He clicked on Aleron’s page, reading about the assassination before searching for the headlines. There was a video, but Damen couldn’t bring himself to click on it. He caught sight of a simple and blurry photo of Aleron and Hennike’s slumped over bodies and that was enough.

It was hard, almost impossible, to equate the Laurent Damen had met briefly with to the stories he was reading. Laurent — beautiful and cold and internationally known — couldn’t be the boy being written about here; it felt so separated.

Damen fell asleep that night thinking of Etoile, Laurent, and how Laurent’s uncle, the very one that took Laurent in, was only mentioned throughout the articles once or twice in passing. Damen fell asleep that night thinking of how Laurent’s uncle had lost his own brother, sister-in-law, nephew, and the only family member he had left gave him no gratitude.

Putting on a face the next morning was easy enough, however, when Damen remembered all they had planned. Once again, they exhausted themselves going around Paris. Damen took Jord’s advice and found a bakery, Blé Sucré, where they ordered Madelienes (which came in a bag of 6), a croissant, pinwheels, and two cappuccinos all for 9€. Then they went to more must-see places, like finally climbing the steps of the Eiffel Tower and paying a visit to Notre-Dame. After hours at just those two destinations, they went back to the hotel a little early to eat at a restaurant a block away they had noticed the day before. They finished the night similarly to how they had the night before, sipping on drinks while planning their next day adventure to Versailles. And if Damen hung around the open balcony window while sneaking glances at the dark apartment across the way, Nik didn’t say anything.

Tuesday, two days after the meeting at Etoile, their entire trip changed.

Everything that morning had gone to plan. They woke up, grabbed more caffeine and pastries from a nearby café, then went about getting ready and calling a ride to get them the forty-minutes to Versailles. The Palace of Versailles made Damen feel like he was drowning; there was so much design, so much unnecessary grandeur that wasn’t there to be anything but a bullhorn announcing all the way from the past, ‘Look how we lived.’ Damen told Nik this must be where Etoile got its inspiration from; as they walked through the throne room and took in the gold and the blood reds all around, Nik told him he agreed. There was so much to see in Versailles, so much space to cross, so much intricacy to absorb, that they were there nearly all day. Upon their arrival back in Paris, they decided to get more caffeine in their system so they could edit a few photographs from the day. They were walking back, eyes and feet tired, when they ran into him.

In Damen’s defense, Laurent was on their side of the road, not the other way around.

He must have been on his phone because it was the thing that Damen and Nik nearly knocked out of his hands upon bumping into him. Damen had immediately gone to grab for it, to make sure it didn’t hit the concrete below, an ‘Are you okay?’ on his lips that died when he saw who they had almost trampled. Laurent looked at them both coolly as Nik managed to ask what Damen had tried to sputter out.

“I’m fine. It appears my phone is fine as well,” Laurent said, not even bothering to inspect if his phone was actually fine or not before he pocketed it.

Damen wanted to say something to that, he did, but the words were lost as he stared. It was almost the same stare he knew had given Laurent the first minute he saw him all dressed in gold, but this was different too. It was different because Laurent wasn’t dressed in gold, in fitted clothes made for runways and magazines, in makeup that accentuated parts of his beauty and hid others. He was wearing a blue turtleneck sweater so deep in its color it was almost black, the same color of the very form-fitting pants he had on that stopped just above his ankles so the quality of his black boots could be seen. Folded over his arm was a black jacket, a thin but solid fabric, and around his neck was a loosely wrapped scarf made of a light blue material. It was all so concealing, so austere, and yet Damen was able to tell that he wasn’t holding himself quite as artfully; he simply radiated his own kind of natural elegance this way.

But it wasn’t even the clothes that had Damen staring. It was the lack of makeup on Laurent’s face. In the three days Damen had seen Laurent, Laurent had always had something on his face, whether it be eyeshadows or lipsticks or designs of some kind. But now his face was bare and it was so surreally beautiful that Damen felt as though the air he was trying to breathe was too thick to go down to his lungs. He felt lightheaded as a result. That blond hair was pulled back in a low ponytail, held with a singular clear band, and it drew all of the attention to the sharp lines of Laurent’s cheekbones, to the blue of his eyes, the fan of his eyelashes, and the fullness of his mouth.

 _Oh_ , Damen thought.

In his staring and his silence, Nik and Laurent took the time to talk — that is, if you can count such a stilted conversation as theirs talking.

Luckily, Damen shook himself out of his own stupor and was just honing back in on the conversation when he heard the tail-end of Laurent’s response to Nik.

“— told Nicaise I would take him out for dessert and the devil doesn’t seem to care that it’s well after the time people are supposed to go get dessert.”

“Who’s Nicaise?” Damen asked. Laurent turned his gaze in Damen’s direction.

“A tiny devil of a boy. I believe he interrupted one of the photoshoots last week,” Laurent said. Both Damen and Nik seemed to, at the same time, remember the horrid child from Etoile’s office bombarding the photoshoot that second day. “From the looks on your faces, you’ve met him.”

“At the office,” Nik said.

“Is he your brother?” Damen asked, knowing that it wasn’t. It was odd, he thought ever-so briefly, recalling what he knew of Laurent now. All the information still seemed as though it was about someone else.

“No. He’s merely one of my uncle’s prodigies.”

Damen and Nik moved to the side to allow a group of people to pass. Laurent stayed where he was. After stealing a look at his phone, he then looked up at Damen and Nik and asked in a tone that said, ‘ _I'm just killing time really,_ I’ “Where are you two off to so late? Not tired of Paris yet?”

“We’re just getting back, actually,” Nik said, waving the camera in his hands once as an explanation.

“We were at Versailles all day,” Damen said. Laurent huffed out a laugh, one that pulled tightly at his mouth and sounded insincere, and Damen asked, “What?”

“I suppose it was my own ignorance that had me making the assumption you two weren’t necessarily common tourists. I appear to be mistaken. Pray tell, what other famous sights have you seen and not seen?”

“We’ve seen most of the big names,” Damen said. “We haven’t gotten to Sacré-Couer, and we have plans for the Louvre on Friday, but —”

Laurent crossed his arms over his chest, pressing the jacket into the blue of his sweater. “If you truly want to see Paris, you cannot limit yourselves to that which you see in movies. You need to go to the parks, the markets, the open-air concerts, and the book and poetry readings. You need to Galerie de l’Instant and you need to simply go on walks. Tourist attractions are famous for reasons, yes, but you’ll never learn about a city like Paris that way.”

“Why don’t you show us around then?”

Damen hadn’t meant to say that, to ask that, the words seemed to have slipped out of his mouth on their own accord. From the look Nik was stabbing into the side of his face, Damen guessed it had come out the way it had sounded in his head: a flirtatious challenge. Nik was going to kill him if Laurent didn’t.

Laurent, for his part, didn’t seem taken aback by the question. He did shift his stance, moving his weight from one foot to the other, but there was nothing else but that bored expression on his face.

“I mean, you clearly know the best spots and the fastest ways to get to them.”

The words continued to come out of Damen’s mouth on their own volition. It was a classic case of word-vomit and Damen was making a mess. Then Laurent said, “Why not?”

It was Nik who double-taked and managed to mumble out an, “Excuse me?” and thank the gods he did, because Damen was, once again, speechless.

“You’re clearly a lost cause,” Laurent said, stealing another look at his phone, “and I’m certain my uncle gave you a speech on the importance he places on model-photographer relationships. You’ll get to see Paris and I’ll not have to endure near the wrath I would receive next week when I spend our Friday luncheon ignoring most of everybody.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Damen said, finding his voice. Now Nik seemed to have lost his.

“Perfect. I’ll be here early Thursday morning.”

Damen thought, watching Laurent walk away without another word, that it probably would have been wise for them to have exchanged phone numbers or, at the very least, given Laurent their room number.

“Seriously?” Nik deadpanned.

“What?” Damen asked, defensively, but he was smiling and that wasn’t helping him right now. “We always take advice from locals. It’s always gotten us to the best sights and food, you know that.”

“Did I not just say, oh, two days ago that asking people from Etoile where to go probably wouldn’t be our best bet because they’re in an entirely different universe?”

“You did, but —”

“And did you not agree because you’re the one who first brought up the snobbery I’d be dealing with?”

“Yes, but —”

“Damen.”

“Nik.”

They stood there for a moment in silence, the only noise that of the moderately-busy street around them, and then Nik said with a sigh in his voice, “At least it seems he’s getting something out of this so he might not be too awful. Though I’m not sure how good I feel about helping him get around his uncle in any way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :) laurent. always scheming. 
> 
> i based the search results for laurent off of searching 'bella hadid' if anyone wanted to know where i pulled some of those numbers and whatnot from lol


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so you're going to have to suspend some disbelief a little here, once more (hopefully for the last time lol). i know that it is unlikely they could see all the places they see in a the span of half a day. i didn't map it out, precisely, but that's how i know it's much more unlikely. i ended up scrapping half of the places because the chapter just kept getting longer and longer anyway so.
> 
> hope you enjoy!

Damen was almost certain that his dream had been a pleasant one. There wasn’t anything all that concrete he could hold on to in memory of it, but he recalled lots of sunlight and the smell of freshly baked bread. He would have liked to have continued in that dreamworld for a few more hours, but it had been interrupted by a sudden –

_Knock. Knock. Knock._

The person at the door, Damen first thought upon hazily waking up to the sound, must have a death wish.

_Knock. Knock. Knock._

Still too asleep and too caught up in trying to remember if the warmth from his dream had been from the sun on his skin or the warmth of an oven, Damen couldn’t even process a second coherent thought yet. Instead, he groaned. It was that overly loud kind of groan someone might do after not having used their voice for a few hours. Then he turned his face into the pillow, willing the person on the other side to magically disappear.

_Knock knock knock._

“Damen.” Nik groaned too, his groan somehow sounding more frustrated in its tone than Damen’s own. “If you don’t answer that right now, I will not be responsible for the murder I commit.”

Damen ignored Nik for a moment, flipping over onto his stomach and bringing the pillow up and over his head so it muffled the sounds from outside.

_Knock knock knock._

With yet one last groan, Damen threw his legs over the bed and stared blearily at the red lights of the alarm clock on the joint nightstand between the two beds. 5:47. When there was again another _knock knock knock_ , he finally stood up and shuffled his way across the room.

Damen really was normally hard to frustrate or anger, but exceptions could be made for ridiculousness such as incessant knocking before six in the morning. It’s why, as he crossed the floor and flung open the door whilst rubbing sleepily at his eyes, he didn’t even have anything particular he planned on saying to the person on the other side, he was just going to say whatever came to mind. And, if he had actually stopped to think about that before he did it, he would have probably tried to stop himself because he was (rightfully) pissed off and nothing good ever came from greeting anyone while (rightfully) pissed off and –

After he pulled the door open, it took his sight a moment to adjust and come to the realization that it was Laurent DeVere standing outside his hotel room.

Laurent, very much unlike Damen, appeared to have been up for some time already. He looked impeccably put together, a black peacoat falling just below his waist and leading down to black pants and black shoes similar to what he had been wearing the other evening, and his eyes – blue and bright – looked perfectly awake.

“Hi,” Damen said dumbly, a total one-eighty in his voice from what he had intended.

“Were you planning on sleeping the day away?”

It took Damen a moment to react, but when he did, he squinted as though trying to make sense of conversation. “It’s not even six in the morning.”

He realized they were talking too loudly, and he began to whisper in courtesy for the old woman staying in the room next to their own. Damen and Nik had run into her once or twice as she gallivanted from party to party, and she was quite a firecracker.

“I thought I was giving you two a grand tour of my city today. So unless you plan on wasting my time, I suggest you put on whatever you consider clothing and come get a coffee so we can begin,” Laurent said, already turning and walking back down the hotel hallway.

“But what about –” Damen began to call out after him, but Laurent didn’t turn around and Damen didn’t want to yell anymore. With a heaving sigh, he closed the door and went back into the room where Nik was sitting up on his own bed, his hair a mess of darkness and his mouth pulled in a sleepy frown. Then he flopped back onto his pillow and gritted out, “Please tell me I didn’t hear who I think I heard.”

“Laurent asks that we go downstairs and meet him for coffee immediately,” Damen said, already rummaging through his bag and pulling out some clothes.

“Well Laurent,” Nik started, “can begin to learn that not everything has to be done on his pompous self-regulated schedule. I’m going to need at least half an hour.”

“I’ll buy you whatever you want if you say that to his face,” Damen said with a laugh. “How about I go right now so he doesn’t go on some kind of diva-freakout, you order a cappuccino from room service, and he and I meet you back here?” Damen offered. He flicked on the bathroom light and Nik groaned again.

“A cappuccino sounds really nice right now.”

Damen’s morning routine was simple enough. He jumped in the shower for no more than five minutes, and then he was out and brushing his teeth, combing through his hair, and drying off best he could before pulling his clothes on. It didn’t matter to him if his hair was still wet before walking out the door because he never did much to it anyway; his curls had a mind of their own.

Laurent was waiting for him. Well, actually, Laurent was waiting for them. Watching the door for a moment, Laurent turned to Damen with a delicately quirked eyebrow.

“Your friend not coming?”

It hit Damen, suddenly in that moment, just how odd this situation was.

Not even a month ago, Damen had been entirely in the dark about Nik’s attempt to begin something professional with his photography and now Damen was grabbing coffee, alone, with a model he had met sporadically over the course of three days so said-model could show them around Paris.

But if Laurent found it odd, he didn’t show it. Instead, he waited for a response.

“He’s just waking up,” Damen said, shoving his hands in his pockets. “He’s going to order a cappuccino from room service and then we can all meet up.”

Not missing a beat, Laurent didn’t say anything else, but began to walk, his demeanor full of an arrogance that Damen would simply follow. Damen did.

The streets were relatively empty of people and it allowed Damen to pay attention to the things one missed while dodging foot traffic, like the intricate designs on buildings, on the flowers just beginning to bloom, on the way the wind snuck through the gaps between buildings and rustled his hair. But with such a leisurely walk at hand, Damen found his attention wavering to the stranger at his side.

It was a confirmation to Damen that Laurent was a thousand times more beautiful without anything on his face. His outfit wasn’t attention-getting, his hair was simplistically done, and yet he was impossible to look away from. In fact, without anything deterring one from looking at only _him_ , Damen found that there had never been anyone he’d ever seen with such effortless allure. (Nik would tell him right now he was biased and always weak when blond hair was involved. Actually, Nik would probably tell him just that at some point today.)

Realizing he was staring (a horrid habit he seemed to have mastered since arriving in France), Damen asked, “Do you go get coffee this early every day?”

“Nearly,” Laurent answered, not looking in Damen’s direction. “Mornings are often quiet. I try to enjoy them unhurried.”

Before Damen could comment back, something about how his and Nik’s mornings were often hurried in trying to visit entire cities in a week or less, or how the only time they got coffee this early was when they were already at the airport for a before-sunrise flight, Laurent was turning and walking through the doors of a cafe.

It was a small place, unsuspecting with its glass doors with gold handles and a handful of tables both outside and inside. The tables were black, as were the chairs, with only the smallest of gold decorations on them. The counter to order was also black, and very tall, and it was all so very much like how Laurent dressed himself, so very much opposite of how Etoile did anything Damen had seen yet. Damen couldn’t help but smile.

The baristas here seemed to know Laurent too, reacting warmly to Laurent’s ‘Bonjour.’ Without even needing to order, Laurent paid for whatever they were already preparing. After his own ‘Bonjour’ and weathering the curious gazes of the two baristas as they looked between him and Laurent, Damen ordered un petit café. Laurent grimaced visibly.

“What?” Damen asked after paying.

“It tastes like what I would guess gasoline tastes like going down your throat,” Laurent said. He motioned to where the barista was pulling the singular shot of espresso into an espresso glass, the crema on top sleek and shiny.

“It’s not that bad,” Damen said. Just then, the second barista handed Laurent his drink. It looked to be un café crème, a latte-like drink of espresso and steamed milk. Damen couldn’t help but notice the pile of sugar cubes next to the glass.

They took a seat outside, per Laurent’s lead, and Damen watched as Laurent took one of the sugar cubes and dipped it into his café crème just long enough for the sugar cube to take on a light brown color before popping it in his mouth.

“You like sweet coffees, I take it?” Damen asked. His espresso was warm in his hands.

Laurent hummed and took a drink. Damen wondered, briefly, if he was using the coffee to wash down the graininess of the sugar cube or if he was using the sugar cube to continue to sweeten the coffee he was drinking. “I was in New York for fashion week a few years back and tried this horrid sugary concoction they tried to pass off as coffee. It was a double-shot of espresso in a pool of chocolate and caramel, shaken with milk and ice, and topped with whipped cream. It was delightful. We don’t have anything quite like that here.”

“I’m pretty sure something like that would be considered blasphemy.”

“Very un-Parisian in every way,” Laurent agreed. He popped another sugar cube into his coffee, then his mouth.

It got quiet for a moment. Damen sipped his espresso and his mouth puckered at the taste. He had heard that Parisian coffee wasn’t up to par with expectations, but having spent as much time in Italy as Damen had in his life, he had a coffee-tuned palette that was displeased greatly with the drink in his hand. Across from him, Laurent was looking out at nothing in particular. This close, and with the newly shining sun facing them, Damen could make out the length of his eyelashes.

“So,” Damen began after it started to feel awkward, after he couldn’t help but shift around just to do something that wasn’t sip on espresso and stare at Laurent, “why are you doing this?”

“This?”

“Showing me and Nik around.” Damen paused as though thinking about what he was going to say. In reality he was waiting for Laurent to respond. When Laurent didn’t, Damen continued. “I’m not trying to sound rude, but you don’t exactly seem the type.”

That got a smile, however small, out of Laurent. “You don’t say.”

This time Damen did wait while Laurent, unhurriedly, took a drink of his coffee.

“I hadn’t been lying when I said that this would keep my uncle off of my back. Every year I spend weeks enduring his demands that I participate with his Paris’ Got Talent search photographers and every year that I don’t, his patience wears thinner. Over time I’ve chosen at least one photographer to,” he did air-quotations with the hand not holding his cup, “‘get to know’ for a day so that I can’t be lectured when I abandon the Friday luncheon early.”

“You’ve done this a few years?”

“Of course. It didn’t take me that long to figure out what to do to appease him.”

“And what made you choose Nik? Why not choose Guillame or someone else?”

“Oh, don’t flatter yourself,” Laurent began, leaning back in his seat and crossing one leg over the other. “Guillame is a mumbling and weak little thing. Had I approached him about anything he would have pissed himself before he could find words. Hendric had other matters to attend to. Those matters, of course, being one of our makeup artists, Genevot. Talik and I would have had more conversation with a brick wall than each other, and Jeurre is a friend of my uncle’s and I am tired of old French men who are friends with my uncle. That, you barbarian, is how I found myself stuck with your friend and, in turn, you.” He paused to take another drink. “You two may be social media celebrities, but nothing could be easier for me than giving you a tour of the city I’ve spent my entire life living in.”

Damen ignored the jab about being a social media celebrity. “Alright, that’s fair enough.”

After running their dishes back indoors, Damen waited for Laurent to get off of his phone so they could go back to meet Nik. While walking, Damen found himself saying, “I don’t understand why you want your uncle off of your back so badly though,” before he could stop himself. He might as well have not said anything at all though. Laurent didn’t react.

Nik was ready and outside by the time they arrived. He had his camera in hand and was taking advantage of the emptier streets like Damen had, only he was using the opportunity to snap photos of Paris in the soft morning light. There was no acknowledgement from him that Damen and Laurent had gotten there but instead, like it was instinct, he turned the camera to Damen and Damen simply talked.

They fell into their normal routine.

“Routine” was probably an extravagant word for what they did. The reality of it was this: Nik occasionally had Damen move around and they chatted while Nik took photograph after photograph after photograph. Damen had learned a long time ago he couldn’t just stand there, it was too awkward, too forced. This “routine” allowed for Damen to not feel like he was doing something fake while also allowing Nik experience with a moving subject. It’s what had built Damen’s Instagram, these candid photos taken while Damen sometimes talked about the most mundane of things, like what he wanted for dinner or that tomorrow was leg day.

They chatted about nothing in particular at this moment. Damen asked how the cappuccino was, Nik said it was shit. Nik asked how the espresso was, Damen said it was shit. They discussed how shit French coffee was and how the next time they were in Italy they were going to drink espresso by the gallon. It wasn’t until the sun had completely risen over the horizon that they both remembered Laurent.

Laurent had been completely silent as they had gone on about like the day was any other day in a new city. When they both turned to him, he was leaning against one of the many columns of the hotel awning, his expression almost amused. Then, with a bored tone, he asked, “Are we done here? Or are you planning on standing outside of your own hotel the entirety of the day?”

On foot, they were able to witness how the streets gradually became busier with bustling herds of people off to work and tourists wandering in every direction. Despite the growing population around them, they could have easily gotten to wherever Laurent was leading them in a short amount of time, but Nik was stopping every five steps to take a photograph of something new. After about twenty minutes of this, Laurent finally let out a huff of annoyance. Damen was pretty surprised he held himself back that long.

“If you would stop taking pictures of every godforsaken lamppost in the city, you would find we are but a street away from something actually worthy of attention.”

In front of them was a building that looked to be made from the mind of Lewis Carroll. It was the polar opposite of everything else along the walk of the now very familiar Rue de Rivoli street, namely for the faces from a Steampunk world that stared out at every passing Parisian and tourist, beckoning them to come inside its bright yellow front door.

Laurent didn’t say anything. He waited while both Damen and Nik walked the outside of this odd building to take in the colors and the signs and the flowers made of metal hanging off of its railings and when he decided they had had enough time, he wandered inside. Upon entrance was a spiral staircase littered with hundreds of writings in mostly French, but there was also English, Arabic, Spanish, German, Mandarin, and Korean that Damen could spy along the way down.

Nik found a painting on the wall to their left, a painting of realistic gemstones glittering between the bones of a stark white skeleton. Next to it was a painting from the election in 2010. Next to that was a drawing of a school desk covered in various graffiti.

“What is this place?” Damen asked, his head tilted up to take in the paper airplanes hanging from the ceiling.

“59 Rue de Rivoli. Otherwise known as the Aftersquat,” Laurent said. He began descending the spiral staircase. “In the late nineties, three artists broke into this building. It had lain abandoned for nearly fifteen years and they had decided it could be put to much better use. Thus, it began to become what it is today, a set of artists’ studios.”

Damen and Nik followed, their eyes trained on the walls. There was every kind of art style imaginable along the way. Damen wasn’t an expert, but he recognized pop art and realistic art and abstract art. There was art that looked like it could have belonged in an old church, its style Renaissance-esque and Biblical. There was traditional and modern Japanese art as well as minimalistic art. It was overwhelming to the senses and yet entirely captivating.

“This place is insane,” Nik breathed, his eyes caught on a painting of a woman staring into a lake at her own reflection.

“It is French counter-culture at its finest,” Laurent said.

They were walking by a room that they realized quite quickly wasn’t a room at all, but an open artist studio. Laurent continued on, but Damen and Nik both stopped to peer inside when a man who had been staring at the doorway stood up from a desk and came out to the hallway far too excitedly.

“Laurent!”

Laurent turned to face the man, his face unreadable. “Torveld. I didn’t know you were still here.”

“I took a two-year sabbatical from the studio to return home for some time, but I couldn’t stay away. Paris has too much beauty to leave behind,” the man, Torveld, said. His face, unlike Laurent’s, was entirely readable, full of adoration and awe at Laurent’s presence in this place. “It is wonderful to see you again.”

“You as well,” Laurent said. “I assume since you’re back you’ll be meeting with Charls soon. He still adores your work.”

“I very much hope so. He’s great to work with and he does work with the most beautiful of models in all of Paris.”

Damen and Nik were standing somewhat to the side, quietly taking in Torveld’s blatant flirting. Nik gave Damen a look that said he was making a silent prayer in Torveld’s honor.

“Charls is wonderful, I’m sure you two will create something just as stunning as the last time,” Laurent smiled. “I’m sorry to rush off, but I did promise these two a tour and we’re already horribly limited on time.”

“I apologize,” Torveld said with surprise in his voice and even a little bit of laughter. “I’m being rude. I am Torveld Patran, one of the artists here in the Aftersquat. This is my third year of residency.”

“Damianos Vallis.”

“Nikandros Kyroi.”

Torveld motioned to the camera in Nik’s hands. “Are you one of the photographers for Etoile’s show this year?”

“Yes. Rehearsals start next week.”

“What an exciting time. Etoile truly houses the best Paris has to offer.”

“So you’ve said,” Damen chimed in.

Laurent was already down four steps toward the next level, and he threw a dismissive wave in Torveld’s direction as an end to the conversation and Damen and Nik did the same, their curious eyes focused on Laurent’s retreating form.

“This is the level that, I believe, will interest you the most,” Laurent said. Around them were photographs layered upon one another like they were pages in a book instead of art on the walls. There were black and white photos to the left and colored photos to the right, all of a variety of subjects. Nik, nearly in a trance, immediately wandered to the photos of a desert near the top of the right wall.

“You seem familiar with this place,” Damen said in reference to the building and its inhabitants as he watched Nik with a smile.

Laurent hummed. “Charls, Etoile’s designer, loves this place. A few years back he was here looking for inspiration for Paris Fashion Week and met Torveld. Torveld’s art is painted on fabric. Charls adored him and had me come meet Torveld as well and to compare Torveld’s art with my skin and my hair and so on. That year, it was no surprise the designs were based upon Torveld’s own. But I came to enjoy this place more than most.”

“Why?” Damen asked. Laurent turned to look at him, his expression unreadable once more.

“My uncle despises this place.”

Damen was going to respond, but just then Nik called him over to point out a photograph of Pulpit Pit. They both brought their phones out to pull up their own photos from that trip which had, of course, involved some very fun rock climbing at a different and less touris-filled area of the Rogaland region. While they talked, Nik began to take pictures of the room, of Damen, of the view down the rest of the open spiral staircase. Like at the hotel, they fell into what was natural for them and only when they remembered they weren’t alone did they stop to face Laurent who was leaning against one of the photograph-covered walls.

“I’m not used to not being in front of the camera,” Laurent said.

“Sorry,” Nik began, fumbling with the camera as if trying to figure out if he should put it down or turn its lens toward Laurent.

“It’s quite more relaxing on this end. Perhaps you can fill in for me during Fashion Week,” Laurent said, angling his head in Damen’s direction.

‘ _I could fill in a lot if you’d like,_ ’ Damen found himself thinking before he could help it, but, luckily, he bit his tongue. Nik threw him a glare as if he knew what was running through Damen’s mind.

They wandered through every floor of 59 Rue de Ravoli with wide eyes and a camera ready for anything. Damen’s favorite art was a section of one of the walls on the fifth floor that was made like an ancient Greek creation, all inlaid with gold and people with straight noses. Nik kept wandering back to the floor with all the photography and even had a good chat with an artist that showed up around nine in the morning. Eventually, after they had seen a lot and not even a quarter of what was there, they exited out of the multicolored side of the door to leave.

The streets were busier at this time, but in the earliest days of March it wasn’t near as busy as it could have been such as in the summer. Laurent didn’t miss a beat in walking out of the door and onto the streets, and he began walking toward wherever he had set his mind to go. Like before, they would have gotten there earlier if it hadn’t been for Nik only, this time, it wasn’t really Nik’s fault. A group of (assumed) friends across the street were struggling in getting a group photo and when they saw Nik’s camera in hand they yelled across the way, causing quite a scene, to ask for a few pictures of them together.

“We’ve never been to Paris,” one girl stammered out, looking stressed.

“And we don’t know if we’ll ever get to come back!” another girl said.

“And selfie sticks can really only do so much,” one of the boys said too.

After a shove on the shoulder from Damen, Nik obliged and thus began an actual friendly photoshoot in the middle of a Parisian street just after breakfast. Eventually, after everyone seemed content with at least one photo each, Nik was freed and turned a slightly worried look to Laurent who must have been horribly irritated. But Laurent was on the phone, listening, not talking, and after it became evident he wasn’t going to get off of the phone with whoever he was on the phone with, Damen and Nik wandered up and down the street, taking pictures with beautiful and colorful doors, with script written signs and tiny alleyways, with clothing store fronts and bakery food items.

“What are you doing?” came Laurent’s voice out of the blue. Now he looked impatient. His right foot was angled out in front of him, the heel firmly planted on the ground almost as though he would begin tapping his toe against it at any moment.

“Waiting for you,” Damen said. Nik burned a hole into the side of Damen’s head with his stare. If Damen noticed it though, or cared, there was no sign. He looked at Laurent, meeting Laurent’s gaze without any kind of challenge. Laurent didn’t react. After a moment he said, “Let’s go,” and began walking as though all of this had been his plan the entire time.

Damen and Nik followed, or tried to anyway. It seemed as though Laurent was determined to have them tour the entire city on foot in a handful of hours with the pace he was walking. It was exhausting, Damen thought, as he tried to look up and around at the blur of buildings.

Damen spent a lot of time looking up. Whenever they travelled, which was always, he walked with his head and eyes up, taking in the way the sky set against unique skylines, taking in the way locals casually went around to their familiar spots, taking in the way that atmosphere felt around them. Right now, all of that was impossible with the worry he had of listing Laurent in the crowd or tripping over unknown grounds.

It was Nik, unsurprisingly, who finally forced them to come to a halt. There was something on a wall that caught his attention, and it was as though his camera gravitated to it without his own action.

It was impossible to miss, truly. It was exceedingly large, especially for its placement not but three-quarters of the way up on a wall, and it protruded from the wall at least a meter, casting large shadows all around. Its gold and black coloring shined on the plain beige of the wall it was on, but most striking were the gold figures. A man with a sword, a dragon, a crab, and a rooster, all made of hammered gold, stood under the watch of a round and golden clock. The hands of the clock were still, stuck, and people rushed by it without a glance.

“What is this?” Nik asked, already taking pictures.

“The Defender of Time,” Laurent said. He was staring up at it with something almost sad in his eyes. “It’s a clock. It hasn’t worked in years.”

Nik was moving so he was facing away from the sun, allowing his camera to pick up on the glint of the gold, on the shadows on the ground. “Why hasn’t it worked in years?” Damen asked.

“The funding for it ran dry. It’s expensive to keep a mechanical clock of this magnitude working.” He paused, his eyes scanning over the craggy landscape, over the gaunt face of the man with the sword. “It hasn’t worked since 2003. I never got to see it running, but my brother had apparently loved it.”

“What did it do exactly?”

“On the hour, the man would fight one of the three animals. Each animal is representative of something, those somethings being the ground, the sky, and the sea. It would depend on which animal the man was fighting, but each fight was accompanied by sounds, like the earth moving, the wind howling, or the waves crashing. But then three times a day the man would have to fight all three creatures at the same time.”

“You said it was a funding issue that turned it into this?” Nik asked. He was scrolling through the photos on his camera already. Laurent nodded. “Why not just fund it yourself then? You seem to enjoy it.”

“I’ve never seen it, how on earth could I enjoy it enough to spend money on it?” Laurent asked back. Then he was walking again, not sparing a glance for the Defender of Time.

Nik kept lagging behind, eyes catching on statues, on buildings, on people, and on light, and Laurent looked as though he wanted to be anywhere but here. Damen, picking up on that, did what he did best: talked.

He watched Nik change his angle around an extravagant statue of a man on a horse before asking Laurent, “How exactly did you get into modeling?”

“I was thrown into it,” Laurent said.

“Thrown into it? I thought you wanted to do it,” Damen said, recalling a conversation with Laurent’s uncle from days earlier.

“I did ask to do it, yes. But I never intended on it being my life.”

“But –”

“The wants of a thirteen-year-old are far different than the needs of one. I was too young to know what I needed.”

Damen knew there was a furrow between his brows, knew that whatever was about to come out of his mouth was going to probably piss Laurent off, and yet he asked, “Then why do you do it?”

Laurent finally looked at him, eyes scanning the expression on Damen’s face as though looking for something. “It’s what I know.”

He said it so simply, as though it made perfect sense, as though there was no other option at all and Damen was stupid for even asking such a question.

Damen was struggling with what to say, or ask, next. There were so many things running through his head, namely things that seemed to contradict one another, and he didn’t know where to start. Luckily, or unluckily, for him, Laurent had the next question already sorted out.

“You don’t know about my family, do you?”

For once there was no maliciousness or superiority in the tone of his voice. He sounded curious, his eyes trained on Damen’s face as though still looking for something, though Damen had no idea what.

Damen didn’t want Laurent knowing about his midnight-Googling, of the way his brain couldn’t put together that Laurent was the son of the slumped over bodies of Aleron and Hennike Devere.

“No.”

The word sounded strange coming out of his mouth. Laurent huffed, the sound almost a laugh. “Well you’re not from France so I suppose you wouldn’t.”

Content to keep adventuring, Nik joined them and broke the heavy tension. They began walking again, this time at a more leisurely pace, but eventually the need for food after a coffee-only breakfast made Damen’s stomach rumble in the middle of an alleyway where the sound almost reverberated off of the walls.

“We’ll want to get him food,” Nik said, still shuffling through photos. “He’s insufferable when he’s hungry.”

Damen didn’t argue. “Any recommendations?” he asked Laurent instead.

“Café de Flore is just around the corner.”

To say Café de Flore was busy would be an understatement. Damen was about to suggest something more casual so they wouldn’t have to spend most of their time awaiting their seats, but Laurent was known by the hosts who saw him and said something in French too quiet for Damen to hear. Before he knew it, they were being shown their table.

Nik asked for Damen to get him water before following signs to the restroom in the back. He took his camera and Damen rolled his eyes; it might be a few minutes before Nik was finished photographing every window and light fixture in the cafe.

“Do you come to this café often?” Damen asked Laurent who hadn’t even picked up his menu yet.

“I haven’t in a few months, but, yes, usually I’m here at least once a month or so.” His eyes were trained on the tablecloth, almost as if he was remembering something, before he said, “This was my mother’s favorite cafe in Paris. She said she used to come here almost every day when she first moved to the city.”

“Where was she from?

Laurent actually smiled, though Damen couldn’t for the life of him figure out what he was smiling at. “She was from Sweden.”

“My entire family is from Greece. Mostly from the same city and everything. It must have been nice having two different cultures to grow up within.”

Laurent hummed. “I suppose. Being in Paris, having a French father, and having him immersed in French politics made it oftentimes feel like a singular, all-consuming culture. But my mother did her best to take away some of the seriousness at times.”

“I wish I would have had something like that growing up,” Damen said, but he didn’t sound bitter.

“Was your mother as serious as my father?” Laurent asked. The corner of Damen’s mouth quirked.

“My mother died giving birth to me, so I never met her,” Damen said. There wasn’t any sadness there, feeling and being as removed from it as he was, but it changed the atmosphere in the room. “And my dad was quite serious. But,” he started, trying to change the atmosphere back to what it had been, “my brother’s mother was always kind to me and I feel lucky enough to have had her.”

“How old were you when your father remarried?” Laurent asked.

“Very young. Maybe two? But my brother, Kastor, was already around, had been since before I was born. And his mother had always been in the picture as well. So nothing really changed when my father remarried.”

This time, it was Laurent who had a furrow between his brows. He was just about to say something, ask something for clarification, when Nik came back to the table, just catching the tail-end of the conversation.

“Are you talking about Kastor?” Nik asked with blatant dislike in his voice.

“Yes, Nik,” Damen said with a sigh.

“Damen’s family has more drama than any show you’ll watch on television,” Nik said as he slid into the seat next to Damen. “His dad got Kastor’s mother pregnant back in 1984. Mind you, he got her pregnant while married to Damen’s mother, Egeria. Egeria stayed. Theomedes, Damen’s dad, was part of Kastor’s life and, in turn, Kastor’s mother’s life during all of that. A decade later, Egeria became pregnant and died. Then Theomedes deemed it okay to marry Kastor’s mother.” Nik stopped to take a sip of the water the waiter had left on their table silently. “You would think with Kastor being a whole ten years older he would be more mature than he is, but –”

“Nik, I don’t think Laurent needs or wants to hear about my family drama,” Damen said, doing his very best to change the topic. But Laurent was resting with his chin on his hand, face void of any judgement or emotion.

“Oh no, do tell. I feel as though there’s a story there and it’s only fair. I have been showing you around my city, it’s the least you could do.”

Damen wanted to argue, wanted to say that Laurent wasn’t showing them around out of the goodness of his heart, but instead he found himself saying, “Nik has always hated my brother so you’ll have to take that into consideration.”

“Damen,” Nik started with a sigh. “You –”

“Here, how about I tell it instead,” Damen interrupted. “My brother slept with my girlfriend while knowing of my plans to propose to her. She initiated it, but that doesn’t make it…” He trailed off at the end.

Both of Laurent’s eyebrows were raised, not in disbelief but moreso in fascination, when Nik said, “And sleeping with Damen’s girlfriend was just the final straw of things Kastor has said and done over the years.”

“But it doesn’t matter,” Damen started off just a degree louder so as to speak over Nik, “because I forgave them both, I moved on, and now they’re getting married. Clearly it was the right move on their part.”

“We are not doing this again, Damen,” Nik said.

“I may have to flag the waiter over for a drink,” Laurent said. “Do continue.”

Nik, predominantly, did continue until their food came. He rambled about Kastor’s jealousy, about Theomedes’ unwillingness to come across as having favorites, about Damen’s horrid inability to not immediately trust those he was expected to trust. Damen waved it all off with a dismissive hand, having a reason for everything, and Laurent listened silently but with rapt attention. Damen swore he saw something new in Laurent’s eyes, a kind of understanding of something Damen didn’t know.

Eventually they were off and walking, but not before a very heartfelt goodbye from the host to Laurent. There was something different in the way Laurent was acting now though. He was talking more, pointing out more landmarks and telling their histories with a less guarded facade up and surrounding him. He still wasn’t talking a lot, by no means a chatterbox, but it was as though the things that were necessary, like explaining the meaning behind a building’s title or the reason a gargoyle on top of one of the buildings was missing a bat-like wing came out of his mouth without thought.

He once even laughed – not a long and loud laugh mind you, but a small and quiet yet genuine laugh – as they walked by Jules Lavirotte’s 29 Avenue Rapp and Damen said, “That reminds me of Etoile.”

“I’m not sure if that’s intended to be a compliment or not,” Laurent had said, more amused by that than Damen knew to make sense of.

Eventually, Nik’s instincts had him minding traffic as he crossed the street to ask a woman if he could take her picture. It made perfect sense; she was an older woman, probably in her sixties, maybe even seventies, and she was dressed like the model she most definitely was at one point. The black jumpsuit she was wearing was accentuated by the leopard print scarf that was tossed carelessly over one shoulder. Her red lipstick left a perfect ring on the cup she was drinking out of. She, unsurprisingly, relished in a photography session. It was obvious how stunning the photos would look, her backdropped against the cafe with its swirls in its name and its red curtains in the window.

Laurent seemed to be looking at nothing in particular whilst Nik when about doing his thing. Still standing in front of Damen from the position he had been leading them on their tour, Damen could take in the way the wind played with the end of the braid down his back.

“Can you explain this photographer thing to me?”

The question had left Damen’s mouth suddenly, but he knew why he had asked it immediately. It had been something that had been nagging him since this whole thing started, a thing Vannes had mentioned condescendingly almost ( _“...one of our photographer experimentees,” she had said with a laugh_ ), a thing that, the longer Damen dwelled on it, seemed odd.

“What do you mean?” Laurent asked, not turning all the way around to face Damen, but turning enough so he could see Nik in his line of sight.

“The whole,” Damen paused to find the words, “competition of it. It’s not normal, is it? This isn’t a thing commonly done, having photographers send in applications and having them participate in a week of photoshoots and events in order to decide who should be at the show?” Damen waited for an answer, but when it never came, he kept talking, asked, “Is it a thing your uncle came up with to give unknown photographers a chance? He was a photographer when he first started, right?”

Laurent still didn’t answer right away, but now Damen had nothing else to say or ask. He continued to wait, trying to figure out why it was taking Laurent so long to answer, and when he couldn’t read Laurent’s face, he turned to watch Nik again. The woman was directing Nik around now and Nik did what she said without complaint.

“Etoile used to have its own photographers. Many of them were older, friends of my uncle’s from his photography days. Some of them are still around. But four years ago one of the photographers made an accusation toward my uncle. As you might expect, my uncle was quite displeased. From then on out he decided that finding new people who wouldn’t get the chance to become familiar with Etoile’s ins and outs.”

The explanation came as the last thing Damen expected to hear. He had perhaps expected a heartwarming tale of using one’s position to provide opportunity. He had expected a story of desire to find the best the world had to offer before anyone else. He had even expected a story of corporate desire to save money by hiring more unknowns. And all Damen could think as his brain tried to comprehend what Laurent had just said was what he had heard that first day of the photoshoots:

_“Jeurre over there has worked with him before. Jeurre says that at a photoshoot two years ago, Laurent made one of the newer designers cry so hard that he quit on the spot. I’ve heard one of the current designers talking about how Laurent refused to let one of the newest models, one of the newest signees, be part of this show at all and put down his foot until his uncle gave him his way. I also heard another one of the models say that Laurent gets to lead all the shoots because of his name.”_

_“He’s a spoiled and entitled brat,” Vannes said matter of fact. “Over the years, he’s gotten mouthier, refused to listen to his uncle or the Etoile board on what he needs to do to represent us. He won’t re-sign because he doesn’t want to be told what to do.”_

_“Oh, yes, appearance-wise he is. But, as I said, the world of fashion is cruel and it made him cruel. I’m sure you witnessed some of his callous behavior.” Neither Damen or Nik confirmed, but they didn’t deny it either. Laurent’s uncle flashed them a sad smile. “It pains me that I couldn’t protect his innocence. I had thought I was doing the right thing in allowing him to choose his path in life but…” he trailed._

“What were the accusations?” Damen asked.

Now, Laurent turned to look directly at Damen and Damen felt horribly assessed as though he had done something wrong.

“Is there anywhere else you two would like to go before I leave you two to your own devices? I’m afraid I have dinner plans I’d like to not be late for.”

Damen looked at his phone. It was just after two in the afternoon.

Nik was joining them again, ruining the chance for Damen to figure out how to push for Laurent’s answer, and somehow took over the conversation. They ended up walking alongside the Seine once more, Nik stopping every now and then to take photos of peoples’ reflections on the water, all while Laurent led them to wherever Nik had negotiated as a final sight.

Eventually they came across a park with closely cropped grass and artfully trimmed bushes. It was the Parc André Citroën. It was fairly busy with people lying out on the grass, with people and their children admiring the water features. But what was most eye-catching was the enormous and unmissable balloon that read Balloon Generali in beautiful red writing.

Laurent was walking toward it, allowing his words to trail behind him with the wind. “This is the Balloon Generali, a hot air balloon that will get you to the second highest point in Paris.”

Damen could tell Nik was excited. Things like this were familiar territory for them, views and cityscapes. Sometimes they got there by climbing mountains and sometimes they got there by ski slope, but it was what they did, what they always wanted to do. Even Damen was dragged into the excitement, momentarily forgetting the uncomfortableness he had felt in that last conversation with Laurent.

They didn’t have to wait long to get on the balloon. Each ride was only ten minutes long and the ride before them had been up for at least half of that when they arrived.

The place to stand in the balloon was essentially like a donut. There was a hole in the center where people couldn’t go as the cable controlled by the hydroelectric winch was there to raise and lower the balloon. Damen and Nik filed in behind Laurent. There wasn’t a lot of room to move forward or back, but there were only a few other people on with them so there was plenty of space to go around.

They weren’t given much warning before the cable began to turn and Damen felt the ground fall out beneath them.

Nik was shoving Damen with friendly and familiar hands to stand where he could get pictures of him. Damen laughed, relishing in the feeling of the wind picking up around them, and ignored Nik in favor of staring out at the sights coming into view. They could see everything and could see more the higher they got. Right near them was the Seine which got longer and longer the higher up they got. Turning, Damen could see the maze of rooftops come into view around them, could see the Eiffel Tower across the way, a beacon for Paris, could see people walking streets and sitting on benches.

The camera was clicking in Damen’s ears as he turned and looked at Laurent. There was a strand of blond hair out of his braid and he was looking out at the city with a kind of contemplation. Damen wondered what it was like to live here, to have been here as long as one could remember, and Damen wondered what Laurent was thinking.

Nik found something else to garner his own attention which was a group of people on a rooftop across the river. He quickly changed a few settings before finding them. Damen knew the photos would be clear they’d be able to see the color of the men’s ties.

Too soon they were landing, the ground finding its stability under their feet once more, and they exited with windswept hair and Nik’s camera still clicking.

“I found something just over there,” Nik said, pointing in a vague direction. “I’ll be right back.”

He was off without waiting for Damen, or even Laurent’s, reply. And as he walked away Laurent shook his head physically. Damen didn’t like it.

“What?”

Laurent turned his cool gaze on Damen.

“Is this truly all you do? Take a million photos in a city and leave just to do the same thing in another?”

The huff left Damen’s mouth, but he heard Nik in his head saying, _“He’s a spoiled, entitled, and, again, raging bitch. If he doesn’t like someone, he can and will make their life a living hell. And in this case, that means that if he doesn’t like me, it’s me whose life will be made a living hell.”_

“We do actually work,” Damen said. “There’s a lot of planning, a lot of days we stay up until dawn making sure things are the way they need to be.”

“But you simply travel. Anyone with a camera phone and some money could do what you do,” Laurent pushed.

“Then why don’t they?” When Laurent’s gaze didn’t budge, Damen continued. “It wasn’t always like this either. We worked hard for our first year of travelling. And our hard work was enough to get us tickets to places, but not enough to get us in nice hotels or houses. We stayed in hostels, we ate cheap street food to save money, but we were happy getting to do this. Then it gained traction and we realized we would be stupid to not take an opportunity when it was presented to us.” There was a boiling feeling underneath Damen’s skin, one that had been there since the day he had taken in the extravagance of Etoile, since the day he had realized his joke about Nik having to deal with stuck-up high-fashion snobs was a reality and not just a joke.

“Besides,” Damen said, “I don’t have to explain my life to you, and I definitely don’t have to justify it. How is what we do any different than what you do? You stand there and look beautiful. Other people choose your clothes, other people do your hair, your makeup. Hell, you didn’t even have to work for where you are because your uncle owns the place and gifted you with an opportunity some people work years for and never get to have.”

Nik was calling out Damen’s name from somewhere behind, but Damen couldn’t not watch the way Laurent’s face transformed. It was the small things that changed; the subtle raising of plucked brows, the clenching of his jaw, the squaring of his shoulders.

“There’s a restaurant called La Grenouille Bleue around the corner,” he said, voice hard, just as Nik joined.

Without so much as a goodbye or even a snide comment, Laurent turned and left, his head high and his hair moving with each step.

“What was that?” Nik asked.

It took Damen a second to tear his look away from where Laurent had been, where he had just disappeared around a corner with a flash of gold. When he did, he found Nik’s look a mixture of genuine curiosity and _What the fuck did you do now, Damen?_

“High maintenance models,” Damen said, hoping that would be enough. It wasn’t.

“What did he say?”

That night, Nik fell asleep fairly early. As he had yawned for the seventh time in but a few minutes, he blamed it on Laurent’s early wakeup call and the fact that they probably walked twenty miles. Damen envied him now, watching for a moment as Nik shifted onto his left side. Tomorrow was the luncheon event and it was going to be a long day, but Damen couldn’t get his brain to stop thinking of Laurent. Infuriating and cold and everything his uncle had said.

Unbiddenly, his fingers were typing _Laurent DeVere_ into the search bar on his computer again, almost as if trying to justify his current feelings. The images were all modeling photos, most of them runway shows, and Damen couldn’t help but curse that someone with Laurent’s disposition was so unbelievably beautiful.

The images went on and on, all professionally taken with but a few paparazzi photos outside of the now-known apartment building, and soon Damen found himself adding something to the search bar. He didn’t really know why. _Laurent DeVere young_.

The photos here were entirely different than the ones he had just seen. In the first picture was a beautiful blonde woman with perfectly styled hair and a small smile on her face. She was holding a bundle in her arms, a bundle wrapped in blue, and when Damen clicked on the image the caption said _Hennike DeVere with her newborn son (2000)_. There was another picture, the one right next to the one of Hennike, of a child that was unmistakably Laurent at the age of seven or so with an older boy ruffling his hair. The older boy was nearly a man actually, probably nearing the age of twenty in the photo and he was looking at Laurent with unbridled affection. _Auguste and Laurent DeVere at the UN Council Meeting (2008)_. There were more photos like those, ones of Laurent hiding from the cameras behind his brother’s broadening shoulders, ones of Laurent holding hands with his mother, and just a handful of ones of Laurent watching his father.

Not long down the list, however, there was a change. Damen saw Laurent’s uncle sitting in a velvet-lined chair, a tiny body in his lap leaving his dress shirt tearstained. _Funeral of Auguste DeVere (2013)_ is what the caption said. There were a series of funeral photos next to that, ones with captions reading for _Auguste DeVere (2013)_ and _Aleron and Hennike DeVere (2013)_.

There was yet another shift, the only photos of it on the first page of results just at the bottom. Damen was sure they continued and were probably the entire content of page two. They must have been some of Laurent’s earliest modeling photos for he looked exceedingly young. His blue eyes were startling and large, trained on the person behind the camera as he clutched the sheer red fabric over his bare chest. Behind him were roses dripping with water and the water must have been on Laurent as well for the ends of his hair were curled and a shade darker than the rest of him. It was clinging to his eyelashes the same way it clung to the petals of the roses.

_Laurent DeVere’s first magazine cover, February 2014._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for patience. life has been hectic, to say the least, and this chapter wanted to longer than i ever imagined. 
> 
> i'm not thrilled with this chapter, but i think that might be because i've been reading it over and over again for damn near a month so it's just wearing on me. i hope it's not disappointing and i hope laurent is intriguing enough for some interest in what happens next. damen is very torn on /beautiful/ but also /god he's the worst/ so pray for him, he's dealing with it.


	7. Chapter 7

_Knock. Knock. Knock._

Both Damen and Nik jolted at the sound, Nik almost knocking over the glass of water on his nightstand in the process.

_Knock. Knock. Knock._

They shared a sleepy and startled look from their beds and Damen could see the words forming in Nik’s mind before Nik actually said them.

“Not again.”

_Knock knock knock._

Damen stood from the bed and wandered barefoot across the floor to where someone was knocking on their door too early in the morning. Again. He was expecting Laurent because — well, because that’s who had been knocking yesterday. There wasn’t any other reason, really, especially given how things had ended, but Damen couldn’t think of anyone else that would know which room they were staying in and, even if they did, what they would want from them at 6:30 in the morning and —

Jord stood on the other side of the door, dressed in his usual clothing that seemed to be made as to not draw attention to the man wearing it, and he was holding two large black garment bags over one shoulder. Like Laurent, he didn’t react to Damen’s state of undress upon opening the door and Damen, for his part, felt a bit like he had yesterday as he tried to find words at the unexpected intrusion.

“Hi,” is what he ended up going with.

“Good morning,” Jord said. “I apologize for the early morning wakeup call, but Charls demanded I bring these to you to try on. He’s worried they might not fit and, in which case, he would need to do some alterations before the luncheon event this afternoon.”

Damen took the bags from Jord and tossed them over his own shoulder, concealing his bare torso from the otherwise empty hallway. “Thanks.”

There was a pause, a long one, in which Jord stared and Damen stared back, and it wasn’t until several agonizing minutes ( **note:** about twenty-two seconds) that Damen’s sleep-addled brain finally caught up to what Jord was waiting for.

“You mean to try them on right now?”

“Yes. Charls doesn’t have a lot of time before the luncheon event and there’s still much to do.”

Damen wanted to say that this was something that should have maybe been handled earlier then, and he wanted to say that he had a perfectly fine suit that he used for every black and tie-esque event he and Nik attended while traveling, but he didn’t say any of that. Instead he looked back at where Nik had already crawled back under the covers of his bed and said with a sigh, “Sure.”

He turned to go back into the room when he realized he’d be closing the door in Jord’s face and he faltered at the awkwardness of it all. It felt like that had been happening often since they had gotten involved with Etoile. “Would you like to wait inside?”

Jord didn’t say yes, but he did look around the hallway once before nodding and stepping by Damen and into the room. Damen was making his way to Nik’s bed to smack him awake when the other man groaned under the blankets. “Was it that blond bitch again?”

“No, but it’s someone that works with him and they happen to be standing right here,” Damen said, shooting Jord an apologetic look. Jord didn’t seem bothered by the words as he stood at the door, hands clasped behind his back. Nik sat up slowly.

“Hi.”

Jord repeated the same thing he had said to Damen in the hallway and Nik came to the conclusion of his statement faster than Damen had. “You mean to try them on right now?”

“He does,” Damen said, tossing the bag with ‘Nikandros’ written on it in fancy gold script at the foot of Nik’s bed.

It was a slow process, Nik stepping out of bed, unzipping the suit, grimacing at what he found inside, and trying it on in the bathroom. He was in there for some time and when he did finally emerge, it was in a gold colored fitted blazer with no buttons, notched lapels, matching gold pants, a white button-up shirt buttoned to the base of his neck, no tie, and shiny black shoes.

“There wasn’t a color more,” Nik started, tugging at the white collar of the shirt, “subtle?”

“Charls was informed to stick with golds and reds, I’m afraid,” Jord said. “Does it fit?”

“Yes, but —”

“It looks great, Nik,” Damen said, and he shoved Nik out of the way and went to try on his own suit. Nik stood there, taking in his reflection in the lamp-lit room on the mirror that made the closet door and Jord nodded once at him, like a mission accomplished.

Damen took less time than Nik to try on his Etoile designed outfit and when he came out, it was in a bright red double-breasted blazer with peak lapels and a singular button with a white turtleneck underneath, matching red pants that ended at the beginning of his ankles, and white dress shoes with red lining around the soles.

“These are a little blinding,” Damen agreed with Nik’s earlier sentiment, but he definitely seemed less put out about it than Nik had. “It fits good though.”

“Charls is quite good at sizing people up, even at a distance.”

Damen went to stand in front of the mirror Nik had glanced at moments ago and he adjusted the left lapel that was folded over near the top. Then he tugged at one of the sleeves, trying to loosen its grip around his bicep.

“Well, if they fit,” Jord said after clearing his throat, “I’m going to be on my way. Remember that the luncheon is at the gallery and starts at eleven. No one at Etoile likes to be kept waiting so early arrival to mingle is encouraged.”

“Right,” Damen said slowly, sharing a look with Nik.

Jord actually smiled. “They want everyone filling the seats in time for their heartfelt speeches.”

“Of course it’s one of those kinds of luncheons,” Nik mumbled.

“Thank you, Jord,” Damen said loudly over Nik’s mumbling. “We’ll see you there, right?”

“I’ll be working security so yes,” Jord said. He had one hand on the doorknob.

“And are you going to be wearing a suit like ours?” Nik asked.

“I’m afraid not.”

“Cheers to you then.”

Jord left after that, but not before smiling just a little wider at Nik’s continued grumbling, and that action left Damen and Nik to change out of their suits and place them back in the garment bags.

“Well,” Damen started with a sigh, “there go our plans for the Louvre.”

“Yeah.” Nik looked at the clock. “It’s already after seven, we’ll need to get ready sometime after nine.”

Damen flopped back on his bed. “What do you want to do then?”

“There’s not much time to do anything,” Nik said. “We could just go get coffee.”

Twenty minutes later they were walking down the street wearing their usual casual clothes to not feel cramped and contained the entirety of the day. It was nearing eight by the time they left and the streets were full of people on their way to work. Damen and Nik sidestepped a group of men in business suits.

“Where are we going?” Nik asked, getting himself center on the sidewalk again.

Damen looked up and seemed to pay attention to where they were going for the first time since they exited the hotel. They were walking down a road where some of the buildings’ intricate designs rang as familiar and there were several flowers that were only budding yesterday that were already showing a new petal.

They were going to the coffee shop Laurent had taken him to yesterday morning.

“It’s a nice place,” was all he said aloud.

He was right, of course. It was a tad bit busier as it was later in the morning than it had been yesterday, but the line wasn’t all that long and the baristas seemed to recognize Damen. They didn’t say anything, of course, but there was something in the way they both looked at him and then one another that screamed familiarity. Damen didn’t say anything either, just ordered and paid with a polite ‘Thank you’ when he got his espresso.

“So,” Nik drawled as they took a seat at a table next to the one Laurent had led him to yesterday, “this where _Laurent_ wanted to go for coffee yesterday?”

Nik said the name like it was painful to do so and Damen fought the urge to roll his eyes. “Yeah. It was close enough and had good seating so I figured we’d give it a try.”

They both grimaced as they took their first sips of their espresso. “Well, it’s better than what the hotel gave me, but not by much,” Nik said.

“You would think a city with such great pastries would want better coffee to pair them with.”

Nik hummed in agreement, then took another sip.

They spent some time people-watching, taking in what truly made each place they visited unique, and they did that in comfortable silence until their espresso cups were empty. Then Nik cleared his throat and leaned back in his chair.

“I’ve got to ask about yesterday,” he started. “I mean, Laurent wasn’t my ideal person to spend one of our few free days alongside, but I thought, overall, it had been going quite well. Then all of a sudden, right at the end, he stormed off. What happened?”

Damen had known Nik was going to ask about this today. They hadn’t had much time to talk yesterday because, even with the weirdness of the end of their tour, Nik had been beyond excited to go through his camera roll and to even post some of the photos unedited to his Instagram story. He had spent the whole night doing that while Damen spent the same time searching for these accusations Laurent said had been levied against his uncle. He hadn’t found anything and that only had frustrated him more than their final conversation had. Or maybe it had added to the frustration. Either way, it had left him feeling more frustrated than he had thought he could possibly be toward someone he hardly knew.

Damen began with a sigh. “It was just too much time with him, honestly. Had our tour been cut in half, things would have been fine, but he’s,” Damen ran a hand through his hair, “the worst.”

“Damen, what did you say?”

“Too much. He got all high and mighty about how what we do isn’t work at all and I threw it right back at him, telling him that his team that’s around to make him beautiful do all the work and he’s the prop and,” Damen sighed again. “Yeah. There was more that had happened earlier, and not all of those words were used verbatim, but I couldn’t let any of it go by the end. He’s entitled and rude and has never been told no a day in his life. Vannes had been right about that.”

“Damen,” Nik said with a sigh of his own. “Damen. You have to apologize to him today. You know that, right?”

“I know.”

“No, I mean, I need you to plead. On your knees, begging for forgiveness from that entitled and rude nightmare.”

“I know.”

“You can say whatever you want about him, to him, as soon as my photos are published. But right now, today, I need you to beg for his grace and mercy in any way you can.” Nik pushed his espresso cup across the table. “If he says he needs a drink, I want you scrambling to get him one filled to the brim. If he goes to sit down, I want you running to pull his chair out for him. And if he tells you to fuck off, I want you to pretend you don’t even exist in this world. Okay?”

“Okay,” Damen said, putting his hands up in defeat.

They stood up after another few minutes of people-watching to put their cups inside and then they were off. For them, it wasn’t hard to fall back into normal after a conversation like that because that kind of honesty was foundational in the way they were raised, in the way they communicated with one another always. It wasn’t a surprise then when Damen double-backed to a bakery they had just passed, yelling out in explanation at Nik’s questioning outstretched hands, “I’m grabbing as much as I can. I know those models are going to eat like birds and I don’t want to be the singular person stuffing my face while we’re there.”

Back in the hotel, they did exactly what Damen had intended and stuffed their faces with croissants and pain au chocolats and spent as much time as humanly possible lounging in their comfortable clothes before they had to get ready. But when it was time, they donned their suits and did their best to do something professional with their hair. For Nik, that meant brushing out his long hair, running some kind of oil he got as a sample once while getting a haircut in Spain to add shine, and then pulling it into a low bun that would inevitably let a few strands escape at some point during the event. For Damen, it meant trying to find a way to tame his curls and, like Nik, he had some oil from a hairdresser (Damen’s was in Brazil) that he ran through each twist and turn of hair to give it a more defined shape.

They paused before leaving and took in each other’s appearances.

“You ready?” Damen asked.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Nik said, and he opened the door for them to leave.

The gallery was the same as it had been, only now there were round tables covered with white table cloths lined with thick gold and six chairs per table tied with gold sashes in spaces around the statues, underneath paintings and in pathways of sunlight. There were waiters and waitresses in mostly white already walking around with trays full champagne, white wines, and amuse-bouches, and there were security guards at every exit, every entrance, and two stragglers walking around the east and west parts of the room. Damen saw Jord by the exit that led to the rest of the gallery that wasn’t in use by this event.

It wasn’t the statues, paintings, overflows of gold, waiter or waitresses, security, or food and drink that was worth paying too much attention to, not when there were so many attractive people walking around in one large room. Everyone was dressed in bright reds, golds, white, or some kind of combination of the three, and the room was brimming with color and loud professional laughter.

The first person Damen recognized in the crowd was Ancel who, once again, was truly embracing any and all things red. His red hair was down and in long red curls, and he was wearing a bright red skirt with a slit up to one freckled hip and a long-sleeved shirt that clung like a second skin. Damen went to point him out to Nik, to ask if Ancel was as difficult to work with as he appeared, when they were interrupted by their first Etoile acquaintance.

“Wow, you two clean up nicely,” Vannes said. “I’m surprised Charls had enough fabric to get around both of your shoulders.” She herself was wearing a red and gold jumpsuit, mostly red, with gold pinstripes that made her look long and tall and like she herself could be on the runway at any moment.

“They’re great suits,” Nik said.

“Yeah, Charls is a real talent,” Damen said, subconsciously adjusting the lapels of his jacket.

Vannes took an appreciative up and down look of the both of them. “Indeed.” One of the waitresses walked by and, after giving her an appreciative look as well, Vannes grabbed two glasses of white wine and handed them to Damen and Nik with insistence. “I encourage alcohol early at events like these. You will enjoy the speeches much more this way.” Then she was off, eyes still on the waitress that was now serving wine to Aimeric, his green eyes shining with the gold decorating his shoulders.

Nik was turning to say something to Damen, no doubt something about how every person they had met at Etoile had the air of wanting to eat everyone alive, but he didn’t get the words out before Charls was rushing over, clapping his hands once in excitement. “You two! I apologize we haven’t been properly introduced, it’s been quite a hectic few weeks. I am Charls, the head designer here at Etoile, and I wanted to see how your suits turned out. I must say, and I mean this humbly, they look extraordinary.” With the confidence of a man that worked with fabric most of his life, Charls took a step forward and ran a hand down the fitted sides of Nik’s gold suit and pulled at it as if testing the quality of the fabric. “Yes, very nice,” he muttered, unaware of Nik’s wide eyes boring into Damen’s smiling face.

“I must say,” Charls began as he pulled back and immediately moved his hands to the stitching at Damen’s shoulder, “I don’t think I have ever customized two suits for such strapping specimen. Thank you for the opportunity, gentlemen.”

“Thank you,” Damen said, holding in a laugh at Nik’s inability to hide his feelings on his face. “We really appreciate you thinking about us, even with all you all have going on.”

“We always want everyone to look their best here at Etoile,” Charls said with a blinding grin and then he was gone, snapping excitedly at a woman in a severely laced up corset dress. “Genevoit!”

Damen ran a hand down Nik’s side in jest, laughing as Nik shoved him away. “I feel like we’re in another dimension when we’re around these people.”

“Tell me about it,” Nik said. He huffed as he adjusted his own suit jacket for what was hopefully the last time today. “It’s as though none of them have ever talked to anyone outside of the fashion world or, if they have, they’ve been brainwashed into forgetting how to talk to anyone outside of their own worlds.”

“There must be a linguistics school of some kind that teaches them how to talk to people because there’s no way that’s….”

Damen was going to say that speaking to people the way everyone at Etoile did wasn’t natural and definitely couldn’t be instinctual, but he was distracted by something, or somebody, across the room and right next to Jord, and he trailed off instead.

It was Laurent, because of course it was.

In Damen’s defense, however, Laurent truly was more distracting than usual. In a sea of bright reds, golds, and white, Laurent was wearing an all black suit. It wasn’t any suit though; it was a shiny pair of black shoes with heels that gave him an extra two inches of height and made his already long legs go on for miles with black pants that exposed his ankles and went up and up to his thin waist where his suit jacket began. The jacket was all he was wearing on top and it wasn’t any regular suit jacket either. It had a gleam to it, the material satin, and it was buttoned to the place right where Laurent’s breastbone ended. Because of that, it gave the jacket a plunging neckline that exposed the fine skin of Laurent’s collarbones, skin that was so fine one could see the blue veins underneath. The most striking part of the outfit, and not the man wearing it, was the one-shouldered satin cape that fell over Laurent’s right arm and ended near the same spot the plunging neckline did.

Nik was flicking Damen’s ear just as Laurent turned and Damen caught sight of his slicked back blond hair and kohl-rimmed blue eyes.

“For fuck’s sake,” Nik muttered, flicking Damen’s ear again. Pain seemed to process then for Damen because he gritted his teeth and smacked Nik’s hand away. “Are you going to be able to apologize or are you going to be too busy hiding your hard-on?”

“I can apologize,” Damen said. He rubbed at his ear. “Watch. I’ll go right —”

Once again, Damen’s words died off before he got them out, but not because of ethereal beauty. Instead, Damen was interrupted by the tinkling of a piece of silverware against a tall champagne flute. At the front of the room, at the largest table, stood Laurent’s uncle in a bright red suit with swirling gold stitching. He looked regal standing up there with a hundred pairs of adoring gazes from his Etoile employees. In fact, the only person that seemed to truly be put off by his standing there was his only family member, Laurent.

“Before we begin this luncheon in the next few minutes, I would like to welcome you all here. My thanks at your attendance today cannot be said enough. As I’m certain anyone here knows, the weeks leading into Paris Fashion Week are some of the most stressful weeks of the entire year and yet, with all of you, it goes on without a hitch.” He inclined his head toward Charls and continued. “To my designers in fashion, set, and all the cosmetics, such as our hair and makeup crew, I couldn’t do this without you. You are so very much like family.” Charls and a handful of other attendees all raised their glasses in the air, many of their faces full of gratefulness. Herode even had a quivering hand on where his heart lay. “I won’t continue, for you’re all going to hear more from me today, I’m afraid, but I wanted you all to know how much I appreciate each and every one of you.”

There was a cacophony of clapping and even a few loud cheers, but Damen didn’t miss Laurent’s blatant eye roll before he snatched a drink off of a passing tray and held it loosely in one hand.

Conversations commenced only seconds after Laurent’s uncle was done speaking, but it all seemed louder and more joyous. It was so loud that it took a whole minute before both Damen and Nik could make out the yelling coming from somewhere to their right. When that specific yelling finally began to register, the two of them could hear the repetition of “Nikandros!” Talik and Jeurre, the two other photographers that had been chosen to photograph the show, were standing alongside Genevoit, one of the makeup artists, the one Talik had had her eyes on, and Vannes once again, and they were all motioning for Nik to come over to them.

“I’m going to go,” Nik said, raising a finger for ‘one minute’ at the raucous group. “Can you apologize now so it doesn’t become an afterthought after another few glasses of wine?”

“That’s what I was getting ready to go do.”

Nik was welcomed into the huddle of people with open arms and an already rousing conversation, and Damen began walking over to where Laurent was standing on the outskirts, observing all the people in the gallery like an art critic would observe the statues and paintings on the walls. Damen wasn’t stopped by anyone as he walked because he wasn’t a model, wasn’t a designer, and wasn’t recognized by anyone too focused on all things Etoile and only Etoile.

When he was just a table away from where Laurent was standing, he slowed down to try and take time to think about what to say first. By the time he was finally in front of Laurent he had it all planned out, from how he was going to greet to how he was going to apologize, and he was ready to say it from the top when Laurent made eye contact with him, quirked a brow, looked him up and down before speaking first to say, “That ensemble is horribly two seasons ago. What on earth was Charls thinking? Please tell me your friend lucked out better.” Laurent stood on his tiptoes, searching for Nik somewhere in the crowd. Quickly, he went back down on his heels and clicked his tongue in disappointment. “It doesn’t appear so.”

Damen swallowed down what he wanted to say, opting to focus on something positive, something good, he could say instead. It took a moment before he could get it out. “Well, your suit is stunning. You look great.” Laurent’s eyebrow quirked again and he watched Damen out of his peripherals. “You do stand out. I mean, you would wearing anything, but with everyone else in these colors,” Damen motioned out at the mingling crowd and trailed off.

“My uncle hates black suits,” Laurent said, shifting the champagne flute from one hand to the other. “He says it’s the most boring color of suit a man could wear and, as you know by now, Etoile is anything but boring.”

There was a pause. It was an awkward one, at least for Damen, because he didn’t know what to say to that. Laurent looked unbothered, his eyes still surveying the crowd, and it was in that awkwardness that Damen decided to just go for it.

“I feel as though we got off on the wrong foot yesterday. And at the photoshoot. But mostly yesterday.”

For the first time since Damen had come over to converse, Laurent turned to face him with his entire body. Those blue eyes were electric lined with smudged kohl liner and Damen didn’t even realize he was holding his breath until Laurent responded back to him.

“I fear one is always going to be behind when they get off on the wrong foot. We are proof of that, are we not?”

“Maybe,” Damen said, shrugging his shoulders. “Perhaps we could refind our footing though, just long enough to start over anyway.”

“If you’re afraid your friend is going to face any repercussions for your inability to keep your thoughts to yourself, hold your breath.” Laurent said this after a perfunctory look at Damen’s face. Damen, irrationally, wondered if Laurent could read minds. All things considered, it wouldn’t be that surprising. “Even if I had truly been offended I wouldn’t punish a man for the words of another.”

“It’s not just that,” Damen said honestly. Laurent didn’t need to know that that was 90% as to why he was apologizing. “I don’t typically pick fights with people, especially ones I don’t know all that well. It was out of my character and I truly do apologize if I caused any upset.”

Laurent let out a loud sigh of discontent and his mouth twisted into something almost cruel. “Do quit groveling. It doesn’t suit you at all, much like how your two-season old suit doesn’t suit this event.”

Briefly worried, for it seemed Damen’s plan of a quick apology was going haywire quite fast, Damen tried to think of something to continue apologizing but to not appear groveling when an apostrophe took the place of that cruelty. He was smiling. “If you did know me, however, you would possibly pick a fight with me?”

Damen breathed. “Probably.” The word came out with a laugh at the end.

Laurent turned to fully face Damen once more and Damen thought he was going to say something else, though he didn’t know what it could possibly be. But before Laurent said anything he held out his still full champagne flute and waited for Damen to clink his own almost empty one to it. “To starting over.”

“To starting over.”

Damen downed the remainder of his drink while Laurent shifted his to his other hand. Before the moment could even properly settle, before Damen could ask why Laurent wasn’t drinking his champagne, Laurent was taking a step away, his shoulders back.

“I’m going to find Charls before everyone sits down to eat. He must know how dreadful I find your outfit and he must know to not put you in such a thing come next week. If a reporter saw you in that,” Laurent stopped to impress the seriousness of such a thing, “it would be an embarrassment to us all.”

“Of course,” Damen said, feeling a degree of whiplash. He watched Laurent walk away (if Nik would have been standing next to him he would have no doubt said something about how Damen watched too intently), watched as he tapped Charls on the shoulder, and watched as Charls enthusiastically greeted Laurent like an old friend making contact for the first time in years.

After a minute more, Damen walked back over to where Nik was only just escaping the group he had been dragged in the middle of, and Damen couldn’t help but grin as he watched Nik pull at the sleeves of his suit jacket again and mutter, “Restrictive nuisance of an outfit.”

“Trouble?”

“Yes, I’m having trouble lifting my arms because it feels like every thread could rip at any moment,” Nik said, giving one last hard tug at his left sleeve. Then he flicked his brown eyes to Damen. “How’d the apology go? You did apologize, right? You didn’t spend the entire time showering him in compliments and thinking that was you apologizing?”

“The apology went fine and, yes, I did actually apologize. Have some faith in me, Nik, I do know how an apology is supposed to go.”

Nik looked at him, his eyes searching, but then he tugged at his sleeve once again. “Good.”

They could have said more, but like earlier there was the tinkling of glass and there was Charls standing at the head of the largest table next to Laurent’s uncle to announce that it was time for everyone to find their seats as food was getting ready to be served.

Damen and Nik found themselves seated at a table with Jeurre, Talik, and each of their managers (who were actual managers), and the food came out in courses, the first course being brie en croute, the second mushroom bisque, the third Beef Wellington with a spring green salad, and the last a ginormous tray of cream puffs delicately over brimming vanilla cream so light it was almost like lifting air. Each course had their champagne glasses topped off by one of the waiters and both Damen and Nik leaned in more than once to the other’s side to proclaim how odd it was getting drunk before noon.

Half right and half wrong, Damen watched as some of the models truly did eat like birds, dipping into the brie once, taking two or three spoonfuls of bisque, hardly touching their Beef Wellingtons and annihilating their greens, and not bothering to look at the cream puffs. Laurent didn’t appear to eat much, but he did eat a cream puff as he talked to his uncle.

Time went by quickly with food to look forward to over and over again, and as the now-empty tray of cream puffs was being cleared from the table, someone called out for a last round of champagne and Laurent’s uncle was standing to make a true speech.

“Without trying to sound repetitious, I would like to thank you all for coming. This upcoming week is incredibly important for all of us at Etoile and beginning such a week with great food and greater company is the only way I can imagine getting through it all.” He nodded his head once as his glass was topped off from a nearly empty bottle of white wine. “I know how much work has been put into this show as I’ve been there to watch all the sweat and tears and even blood that has been shed over every article of clothing, every thematic decision -- whether it be the runway or the makeup on our beautiful models’ faces.” Then, with a heavily ringed hand, he motioned for someone to stand, the demand a subtle curl of his fingers. Damen was surprised to see Laurent push his seat back from the table’s edge and stand.

“Laurent, my dear nephew, and the face of Etoile, has been patient as we have tested each look on his face, each stitch of clothing on his frame, and he will be radiant in this year’s line.” Laurent’s uncle stopped, waiting for the doors that Jord had been standing in front of the entire luncheon to open wide for fabrics made for royalty to come flittering through, assistants of Etoile carrying them for display. “I present to you all The Regency.”

There was thunderous applause from everyone, so loud that some of the silverware on the troubles danced in place. The Regency line was a work of art, and though it was hard to take in each outfit individually, the effect of such a sight wasn’t lost whatsoever. As the applause died, Damen could hear multitudes of voices crying out at the beauty of the outfits, each one the color of what everyone in attendance was wearing, colors seen on the crowns that topped the heads of kings. Laurent took a step toward his uncle.

“Yes, thank you, uncle,” Laurent started, his voice immediately quieting the lagging voices and claps from the tables. All eyes moved to Laurent, his black suit impossible and shimmering as he moved. “Etoile truly is one of a kind and so much of that has to do with the talent we have in our presence. My uncle has always had an eye for the finest of things and this year’s display showcases that with grace and resplendence. But, as he so perfectly stated, it would have been made unfeasible without all of you, and you have my eternal gratitude.”

The charming speech was met with even louder applause and Damen watched Laurent extend his champagne glass to the crowd in the same careful manner he had extended the same glass to Damen earlier. Then Laurent’s uncle put that heavily ringed hand on Laurent’s shoulder, the shoulder without the cape from the blazer, and he kept it there as he said, “There is work yet to be done and I am looking forward to working closely with each of you as we navigate the press, the fittings, dinners, and, most imperatively, rehearsals of next week.”

Applause. Cheers. Whistles that reverberated off of all the glass. Damen and Nik shared a look.

The largest ring on Laurent’s uncle’s hand, a rubied ring encased in gold and engraved with something impossible to see from far away glittered as he stepped close to whisper something in Laurent’s ear. Damen saw Laurent’s shoulder rise and, briefly, thought Laurent would shrug off the touch, but Laurent didn’t. In fact, he smiled instead, a smile that was blindingly beautiful and would have taken Damen’s breath away if he wasn’t so confused by what was happening in the drowning sounds.

Still watching, Damen wasn’t certain if he was seeing things, but he would have sworn he saw the man’s undecorated thumb brush Laurent’s earlobe as he leaned down to whisper something once again. But whether that was a trick of the light or something Damen didn’t quite understand, it didn’t change that Laurent turned now to face him, blue eyes reflecting the gemstones, giving his eyes a dangerous hue. And though he was still smiling, there was a challenge there that was obvious in the set of his jaw and the way his smile didn’t reach his eyes.

Laurent’s uncle leaned back and joined the crowd in its clapping.

As everyone began to leave just minutes later, Laurent was the first to walk out the doors, Jord trailing.

“You ready?” Damen asked Nik who was fiddling with the fork in his hands.

Nik laughed suddenly, the sound quiet and real and not entirely normal. “For more events like this? No.” He stood up, laughing again, and looked at Damen with such earnesty as he said, “Next time I do a gig, remind me to not do it at a place like this.”

They received a handful of looks as they too were leaving and Damen laughed so loudly that he doubled over as Nik muttered, “I didn’t even know people could be that pretentious.”

"Want to put money down on how bad next week will be?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i promise promise promise things are going to pick up! the next chapter is the final rehearsal and it's when the show comes to a close that things will really begin to change. i'm really excited to get to that point, even though i feel like it's taking forever.
> 
> to those that have read, are still reading, thank you so much <3 your encouragement has meant the world and this is quickly becoming the longest thing i have ever dreamed of writing. 
> 
> also: also also also, i promise laurent is going to be prominent starting in the next chapter. i know he's been missing from this story, but i'm trying to ease him in, to make it real. i'm crossing fingers my rhyme and reason will make sense soon. thank you for your patience lol
> 
> here are links to the suits Damen, Nik, and Laurent are wearing at the luncheon! they're not exact, but they were my inspirations:
> 
> Damen: https://www.asos.com/us/river-island/river-island-double-breasted-skinny-fit-suit-jacket-in-red/prd/14271051
> 
> Nik: https://www.asos.com/asos-design/asos-skinny-blazer-in-cotton/prd/5341644
> 
> Laurent: https://us.shein.com/Adyce-Plunging-Neck-Cloak-Sleeve-Cropped-Jumpsuit-p-1033767-cat-1860.html?url_from=adplaswjumpsui42200303245L&gclid=CjwKCAjwydP5BRBREiwA-qrCGi7JmqVhpYEr1uIGW5EQAK9DXwTVUpOvHdoIIKrtyEpw_rWM_kbCUxoCiEcQAvD_BwE


	8. Chapter 8

Damen was good at keeping himself busy, and that was a great thing because he liked being busy.

It turned out, however, that it was a little more difficult to accomplish a nonstop business, especially for almost an entire week, without Nik. It wasn’t impossible by any means, but it was more difficult. After all, Nik was a constant presence, had been since they were school children playing kings and knights on the sand while Damen’s stepmother watched on. Him not being around felt different.

Still, Damen had plenty to do while Nik was off attending photography sessions, lunches that were more planning than eating, and dealing with the multitude of models that would be walking the runway tomorrow. There were photos to be edited and posted from their time in Cortina and their brief week in Berlin, there were longtime sponsors to be called, such as Damen’s favorite supplement company over in New York that truly had the best tasting protein powders, EAAs, and pre-workout on the planet (rumor was they were coming out with collagen peptides soon too and Damen couldn’t wait to get his hands on those), or the company they got their luggage from; and there were potential sponsors to email to see if a partnership could be worked out on terms preferable to both parties. It was a full-time thing, truth be told, especially navigating the time zone differences Damen did his best to be cognizant of.

So yeah, Nik wasn’t around, but Damen was good at keeping himself busy.

It wasn’t going to be necessary after tonight though. Today at three on the dot was the dress rehearsal for the show, scheduled so they had plenty of time to fix anything gone wrong with enough time for the models and crew to get home and rest before the big day tomorrow. Damen, of course, was going to both the rehearsal tonight and the show tomorrow. He had been told that Charls had yet one more suit for him to wear that the man was ecstatic about getting around Damen’s shoulders. It all meant that Damen’s next two days were packed and, after those days were said and done, Nik would be back on his side and they could leave Paris.

And as much as Damen was enjoying Paris and all its sights, he was ready for new scenery. After the show tomorrow it would be time to start planning their next place. Damen was already thinking about Spain and then maybe a trip across the ocean to Canada. It’d been a while since they’d had a chance to really go on an adventure.

With a click, he sent out one last email to a wireless headphone company that had contacted them last week and then he leaned back in the chair he was sitting on and took in the view.

He had decided to do work out on the balcony of their hotel room. Part of him had wanted to go out, settle in at a cafe somewhere, and pretend to be Parisian for a few hours, and the other part of him knew that, had he done that, he would have been too distracted by everything around him. But here on the balcony wasn’t such a bad deal. He had the sounds of car horns, engines, murmurs— and sometimes yells — in a variety of languages, and the gentle rustling of the air to be a sort of white noise that kept him grounded and focused.

But now his work was done and he could look, could take in the sky that was a blank slate of gray, could take in the people cautiously walking around with umbrellas already out in case it rained, could take in the insane increase in traffic on the road leading into Paris Fashion Week.

Damen was in the middle of keeping a mental tally of every person he saw pulling luggage out of a car to stay in the very hotel they were staying at when the door opened.

The first thing Damen was hit with was a sense of déjà vu. Over his shoulders, Nik had two black garment bags that Damen could only assume had each of their names written in gold upon. The second thing Damen was hit with was one of the said garment bags as Nik threw it and it landed on his face.

“What’s this?” Damen asked, holding the bag at an arm’s length. It was heavy, the fabric inside a kind with a weight to it that Damen immediately was worried of getting hot while wearing.

“Your outfit for tomorrow. Beware, it’s just as gaudy as the one last week,” Nik said. He hung his own bag on a hanging attachment between the two closets in the room.

Damen snorted. “At least it should be our last gaudy outfit while we’re here.”

“Oh, mine isn’t gaudy, just yours,” Nik said. “I have to be inconspicuous as I’ll be up around the stage. My outfit is just a black suit with a black undershirt.”

“What? And I’m getting stuck with some atrocity that’ll make me wish I couldn’t see in color at all?”

There hardly was time to dwell on his new Charls’ creation, however. Now that Nik was back, Damen’s busy two days finally began. They had early lunch plans at Massale and it was going to be a sprint to get from there to the space where the show was being held for rehearsal at three. Only the gods knew how long the rehearsal would be, but at a minimum it was going to take near three hours.

“Does the rehearsal have a dress-code?” Damen asked as they exited the hotel. He looked down pointedly at his outfit which consisted of the black joggers he’d been lounging in all morning, a crisp white tee, and a zip-up black jacket with white stripes down the arms and circling his shoulders. Nik looked him up and down and then made a face.

“They didn’t say anything. I’m wearing this,” he said, motioning to his own outfit of light wash jeans and a dark blue tee. “Besides, I don’t think they’re going to care at the rehearsal. You’re not exactly who they’re focused on today.”

Unsurprisingly, lunch was delicious, but some of the enjoyment of its deliciousness was lost as they truly did have to sprint from the restaurant to a cab that got stuck in actual lunchtime traffic for so long that they put a handful of bills on the center console and, once more, sprinted. This time they sprinted all the way to the Grand Palais, the stage for the show tomorrow. They made it on time though, walking in with Nik’s photography pass and its fine print stating that he would have a manager with him, and they even appeared to beat Charls who wasn’t flitting around in an anxious tizzy quite yet.

The Grand Palais des Champs-Élysées, commonly known as the Grand Palais, was an immaculate building located in the 8th arrondissement of Paris and could be seen from the Eiffel Tower. Built at the end of the 19th century, the building was a masterpiece of classicism and art nouveau. Its classicism could be seen in its stone facades, columns, and friezes, and it was the intricate metalwork that structured the famous glass ceiling that showcased its art nouveau touches. It was a stunning building, its attraction as a tourist sight obvious, and Damen smiled at how fitting it was for Etoile to have their show here.

But the Grand Palais’ artistry was almost a second thought when the set for the show came into view. Neither Damen or Nik had known that fashion shows created entire sets, like a stage production, for their shows. It made sense, Damen thought later. Oftentimes, these fashion lines had tangible themes to them. The set designer for Etoile had told Nik and the other photographers about several of their past shows, some of which included fashion lines centered around clothes inspired by Itay’s romantic rues, clothes inspired by Riviera cruises, and clothes inspired by the alpine winters. The set for the alpine winters had been covered in something to give the appearance of snow, that’s how much work was put into an Etoile show. But even knowing that, Damen and Nik were taken aback by the extravagance of the scene underneath the glass ceiling.

They recognized what it was an imitation of right away. After all, it was one of the few places they had traveled to here in Paris in those earliest days of getting to the city. In front of them was the Palace of Versailles’ Hall of Mirrors.

Chandeliers had been assembled to hang, each one an endless shimmering of crystal and gold and light, and their light glinted off of all the gilded gold statues and reliefs adorning the walls. Marble columns lined the Grand Palais, making it appear like a hall, and between each column was a golden arch. In the true Hall of Mirrors, there were seventeen of these arches. On one side of the hall were arched windows that overlooked the gardens below. Across from these windows were mirrors, the very mirrors this hall received its name from. For Etoile’s show, every archway held only a mirror.

It was beautiful and something worthy of royalty to be seen within. And it wasn’t done. There were men hanging paintings from the ceiling, hanging them in the way the chandeliers were, but they were not centered; the paintings were being hung over the archways as though they were lining the walls, and Damen recognized they were paintings like what decorated the ceiling in the Hall of Mirrors. Paintings of Louis XIV’s greatest early triumphs.

“They don’t play around do they?” Nik asked rhetorically, his eyes scanning the hall in disbelief.

“Haven’t you been practicing with this all week?” Damen asked back, his voice holding the same kind of disbelief Nik’s eyes held.

“In separate pieces. I mean, they’ve had us practicing shooting in front of mirrors, in front of reflective surfaces, in front of light backgrounds, and then all of that combined. But I didn’t expect it to be this,” he paused, “extra.”

Damen laughed and put a hand on Nik’s shoulder. “Really? After two weeks of being around Etoile and you weren’t expecting something this extra?”

“Nicolas, there you are,” said an older man suddenly -- an older man who was definitely flitting around in a tizzy while Charls was absent to do so — with a thick French accent. “The photographers are meeting in the dressing rooms alongside the models. You will need to be practicing how you will move from there to the stage as unobtrusively as possible.”

“His name’s Nik,” Damen said even though it wasn’t him who had been addressed. He was smiling, but anyone that knew him, Nik as a prime example, would be able to see the way his shoulders had tensed, would be able to see the way the smile didn’t reach his eyes. Nik reciprocated Damen from moment’s ago and put a hand on Damen’s shoulder instead.

“I’m sorry?” the man — Audin, one of the other designers, though Damen couldn’t remember if he designed set or clothing — asked, sounding anything but sorry.

“His name’s Nik. It’s not short for Nicolas, but Nikandros. It’s a Greek name.”

“Of course,” Audin continued. Damen didn’t miss the way the man looked at Damen’s clothes with distaste. Then he was gone, walking as though knowing with utter certainty Nik would follow. Damen made a sound.

“It’s fine, Damen,” Nik said, his hand still on Damen’s shoulder. “You settle in to watch, I’ll go do what I need to do, and then we’ll be done for the day.”

“I can’t wait to get back on the road,” Damen said. His shoulders were still raised.

“Me too. It’ll be nice for some normalcy.” Nik paused for a moment, and then said quieter, “I’m sorry for throwing this on us.”

“Hey, no,” Damen started, pulling back. “This is incredible for you. I just wish it wasn’t like —” Damen used both hands to motion at the everything around them.

“It really hasn’t been that bad. Sure, some of the older guys aren’t the nicest, but no one has been outright cruel. Yet.”

“Not even Laurent?” Damen asked, eyebrows raised.

“Laurent has been completely professional. The biggest issue with the models has been Ancel. And he’s just inappropriate,” Nik said, mouth twisting. Damen’s shoulders fell back to their normal hold after a second.

“I think a redhead might be good for you,” Damen said.

“Hell no,” Nik laughed, and he was walking too, following the direction Audin had just left. “I’ll catch up with you after.”

Damen spent a few minutes walking around and taking in the art that transformed the Grand Palais into the Hall of Mirrors, but after some walking he found a seat and sat down in it to wait for the show to begin. He waited, and he waited, and he waited, and nearly drained his phone battery in the process. There weren’t many people out near the front where the show would be, mostly a few assistants given tasks of perfecting every minute detail. Damen was beginning to fear that something had gone horribly wrong and they wouldn’t be able to get out of here for some time, but just as that worry was festering, the lighting changed and a voice rang out over the Grand Palais.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the voice started, its pitch low and breathy, its French accented heavily. “The French Revolution began in 1789. We, the people of France, had grown tired of the disparages between our King and ourselves. There was struggle, and pain, but we emerged victorious from the battles and slowly began to make our country what it is today through hard work and dedicated leadership that focused on bettering each citizen. Now, the great places, like Versailles, are for the people, just as they were always by the people. Though we relish each day in our freedom, we keep the beauty of the past alive by embracing it through every step we take in our great country. Today, we bring the beauty and elegance of that timet to you. Please welcome Etoile and its spring line entitled The Regency.”

There was a lot Damen could have said about the show. In the grandeur of this mock Hall of Mirrors, the clothing on the models truly appeared to be something made for the kings and queens of the days of a monarchy, where royalty was more than a symbol of the past, a romanticized view of history, but true rulers that relished in their greatness. Like the hall, many of the models were wearing golds and whites that were both glamorous and yet a camouflage, making them appear as glittering decorations that walked center until filing back against the mirrored ‘walls.’ Damen was struck by the interesting lines of the shoulders on many of the outfits, half of which were straight and wide, almost reminiscent of the 1980s shoulder-pad fad, and the other half of which were puffed and large, like a woman’s dress may have boasted in popular fashion in the past centuries. But then, at the end, were the stars of Etoile’s show.

Draped in blood reds, these models were clearly meant to be the kings, the queens, the princes and princesses of King Louis XIV’s rule. They stood out amongst the hall, amongst the other models, each dressed in the same color of the very throne that sat in the very same palace miles away. The first person that came out was Aimeric in a chunky red sweater that made him appear daintier than he was. Deep red velvet pants complimented it, especially as they ended just below his knees in a loose fit, bringing it together as a modest outfit worthy of all its attention. Then came Ancel, who stood out with his hair to match, in a red dress littered with cutouts that showcased freckled skin in all different places. Most prominent was the bearing of his sternum that begged for all eyes to look center. And lastly, Etoile’s face, was Laurent DeVere dressed in an outfit for a prince. Covered neck to toe, it was tame and utterly sensual all at once, no doubt due to the golden corset that cinched in his waist to almost nothing, that gave him such an untouchable look, that matched the crown upon his head dripping in rubies that brushed his forehead.

His crown was the only crown in the show. Etoile knew what they were doing. His beauty was unmatched.

Laurent walked like he’d been born on the runway. His footsteps fell to the barely-there beat of the music playing over the Grand Palais, his strides were long and they accentuated the length of his legs. His back was straight, his core tight, and it made him look taller. His shoulders were back and down in a way that took the attention away from any breadth and instead put the attention on the elegance of his neck and all the way to his face that was beautiful and the ultimate eye-catcher of the entire show. The jewels embedded into his crown were nothing in comparison to his eyes.

But beyond that actual magic of the show, of how beautifully it all came together, Damen was struck by how short it was. For some reason, he had assumed this show would be a long event, something to take up the entire day. Only fifteen minutes after the voice first rang out to introduce The Regency did the show come to a close, each model strutting to the front of the set, smiling instead of holding their faces in that high fashion seriousness as they brought up Laurent’s uncle for his own recognition. He was, after all, their boss, creator, and the genius behind the line.

The music died off and the lights came back on, blinding after the subtle lighting, to bring attention to the final product that was the show. Laurent’s uncle clapped his hands together once, the sound reverberating off of all the surfaces in the room to provide a near echo, and then he began to speak.

“Charls,” he started, voice loud and face relaxed. He looked ginormous on stage next to all these models, many of whom were so young they hadn’t grown into who they would be. “How were things on your end? Any complications?”

For the first time since Damen got to the Grand Palais nearing two hours ago, he finally got to set eyes on Charls who had apparently been peering at the show from one of the marble pillars nearest to the front of the mock Hall of Mirrors. He was physically flabbergasted, his hand at his heart as though begging it to stay in place, his eyes brimming underneath all the lights.

“Oh,” he said, and then he stopped to compose himself. “Oh, everything was perfect! You’re all perfect, your outfits were perfect, this set — !” He stopped again, taking in a deep breath. “This is, by far, the best show Etoile has ever done, and our past shows have been tremendous feats of beauty. Sir, you have truly outdone yourself. Your vision remains unparalleled.”

Charls was bowing at the man that was center stage. It was quite a sight, the man surrounded by models he had honed, all wearing clothes he had brought to life. Everyone began clapping, and Laurent’s uncle took the praise humbly, his smile small and his acknowledgment gracious.

“I believe that, since we have plenty of time given the perfection of everyone here today, we should celebrate. Dinner tonight at Restaurant Le Meurice Alain Ducasse. On me, of course. We’ll begin soon, say no later than seven, so our lovely models can be well-rested and beautiful come tomorrow’s show.”

As the man went to leave, clearly still having much work to do for tomorrow’s event, he was followed by more applause. Some of the models even cried out lilting thank yous at his exiting frame. Charls took his place center stage, his eyes still adoringly fixed on where Laurent’s uncle had disappeared, and then he began giving out a list of times that needed to be remembered by all parties involved for tonight and tomorrow morning.

“As we have just been told, dinner will be an early event tonight. Models, if you are not out of the restaurant come after nine, I will delicately throw you all out myself as I need you all in your rooms and resting! Regarding tomorrow, our show will begin at 10:30. Yes, we did, in fact, get Chanel’s envied time slot given their grievances of last year. As we are the first show of tomorrow, we need to make a lasting impression to last attendees through the other eight shows they will be viewing throughout the day. That means I need everyone, and I do mean everyone, here no later than 7:30. Does everyone understand?”

There were murmurs of agreement, a few excited squeaks from gods-know-who, and then the crowd of models, photographers, makeup artists, hairstylists, set designers, clothing designers, assemblers, assistants, and all others involved in creating such an elaborate show dispersed. The only two left on stage were Charls and Laurent, Charls’ hands unable to stop touching the crown on Laurent’s head, the fabric at his wrists, the stitching at the hem.

Damen was just getting ready to find where Nik and the other photographers had disappeared off to, assumingly back to the dressing rooms, when he felt a hand tug at the arm of his jacket, not kindly whatsoever. He turned, unsure of what to expect, but what he found was definitely not anything that would have come to mind.

“For reasons that don’t make any sense to me,” began the child from Etoile’s office — Nicaise, Damen remembered Laurent saying — without preamble, “you are wanted.”

“What?” Damen asked with an aborted and incredulous sort of laugh. “What for?”

“I’m not your fucking errand boy,” Nicaise said, spat, “Go find out or don’t, I don’t care.”

Damen was so taken aback by the language from someone, something, so delicate and small that it took him a moment to get his feet underneath him to follow Nicaise’s already moving feet. He gave one last sparing look to the set with its mirrors and marble pillars as though he could will Nik’s presence from where he was still meeting with the photographers, but Nik didn’t appear and Damen was off following where Nicaise had disappeared to, out a set of double-doors with large, flat golden handles.

The Grand Palais consisted of three separate areas: the Galeries Nationales, the Palais de la Découverte, and the Nave. The Nave was where the famous glass ceiling was, was where Damen had been since he had arrived earlier in the afternoon, and Nicaise had disappeared into the Galeries Nationales, located in the east wing of the building. The Galeries Nationales was often the sight of major art exhibitions and even when there was no exhibition it was brimming with all kinds of artistry. Today was no exception. The art was similar to the art that made up the entirety of the building, a display of classicism and art nouvea. But Damen didn’t have time to focus on that, not when Nicaise’s curled head was twenty yards ahead and showing no signs of slowing down.

Eventually, however, Damen’s long legs and his full grown height put him at the advantage to catch up, and he was right at Nicaise’s heels just as the boy began to slow his pace. It was right in front of a painting that Damen couldn’t see due to it being blocked by Laurent’s uncle.

“Damen,” he began as a greeting, not bothering to turn and face Damen as he came to a stop just a few steps behind him. “Or do you prefer Damianos?”

“Damen is fine, sir,” Damen said. His thumb hooked into the soft fabric of his joggers’ pocket in an attempt to stand casually.

“Damen it is. How did you enjoy the show?”

“I enjoyed it very much,” Damen said, mind whirring. “I was floored by the set design. It truly brought a line titled The Regency to a different level.”

“And the clothes?”

“Stunning as well.” Damen hesitated for only a brief moment. “I’m afraid I don’t know much about fashion, sir, so I hope you can forgive me for being at a loss as to what I could say. It’s not my area of expertise at all.”

The man finally looked away from the painting on the wall, a classicist painting that looked almost like a Poussin, and he smiled at Damen as though utterly amused and appreciative of Damen’s honesty. Then he said just that.

“It is refreshing having a person admit such a thing. Too often do I have men attempt to talk in circles in order to appear as though they know what they’re talking about.” He was making intent eye contact when he changed the topic and it was as though the change twisted his face into something different. Damen didn’t know what to make of it. “But there are several areas you do have expertise in.”

Damen cocked his head. The man smiled again.

“I must confess,” he started, “that I was curious about you and your friend, Nikandros. Of course, we as a company had done basic research on him during his application process, but given the influx of applications we receive there simply isn’t time to do an in-depth look at each candidate. But, as I said, I was curious after meeting you both that first day. You were both quite unlike anyone that has been involved with us here at Etoile.”

At a loss, Damen didn’t say anything in response. He didn’t know what to say. Luckily the only person who seemed to be making a big deal out of it was Nicaise who rolled his big blue eyes with the force of his entire little body.

“Your father owns a business in Greece. Akielon Tech. It’s a billion dollar company, Damianos. And not just any company, but an arms-producing company. According to several articles dug up in our search, you were the preferred heir to take over the company one day. Yet,” the man trailed, still looking at Damen with an intensity, “you’re here in Paris as your friend photographs a fashion show. How is that?”

To say that this was an unexpected conversation would be an understatement. Damen knew that a basic search of his name would bring up, nowadays, his Instagram and Youtube accounts, and no doubt the other social media accounts he held, all alongside some articles he and Nik had been featured in regarding their travels. He also knew, however, that searching his name would lead to Akielon Tech and all that it was — which was more complicated than just an arms-producing company as its focus could be found in the specific area of cybersecurity and other technological aspects of military weaponry. It wasn’t a secret, but it also wasn’t something he brought up in casual conversation and, when one was only in places for a week at most, almost all conversations were casual.

“I wasn’t ready to settle into an office for eight hour days the rest of my life,” Damen said slowly. “Not then. Not yet. I took a gap year, as expected, and things got away from me. From us. I thrilled in discovering new places, in revisiting places and finding beauty in the familiarity, in meeting new people and experiencing things I would have never experienced in a boardroom. And I still thrill in those things. Until that thrill begins to fade, I don’t see why I should change what’s working.”

“I assume your father is displeased by this,” Laurent’s uncle said, turning to face the painting once more.

“He’s not ecstatic with the decision, no,” Damen admitted, “but he’s gotten better with it. Or he’s completely resigned to it. I’m not actually sure on which of the two it is and I’d rather not know if I’m being honest.”

“Does he fund your adventures across the globe?”

“No. He helped pay for my gap year as a sort of graduation gift, but it was made quite clear if I wished to continue traveling it would be up to me. Nik and I have made it work. Those earliest years were a little rough, but we really have lucked out with sponsorships turned partnerships.”

Just as Nicaise had tugged on Damen’s sleeve without preamble did the man begin walking, motioning with his heavily ringed hand for Nicaise to follow. The boy plastered himself at the man’s side, his own glittering rings shimmering as his arms swung at his sides. Damen looked around once, twice, as if waiting for a sign as to if he was to follow or now.

“I have a proposition for you, Damianos.”

Damen followed. Nicaise turned around to watch him as he caught up with the two of them, and when Damen was back in step, Nicaise faced forward once more, his tiny jaw clenching.

“Etoile is quite a successful company. Globally, we’re renowned for our clothing, and our models are some of the most sought after in the business. But, like all successful companies, we’re looking to expand. In today’s day and age, the best way to enhance one’s self is to expand social media presence. That won’t always be the case, but it is right now.” He was still walking, the exit from the Galeries Nationales and back outside just ahead, but he was walking slowly. Damen was grateful for it as it allowed him to try and process the meaning of the conversation. “Though we have a wondrous team, we do not have the social media expertise that we should. Yes, we have all the accounts that are expected, and yes, there are posts on plenty of those accounts, but we lack the experience to make it what it needs to be. I would like for you to join Etoile as a social media manager.”

They had just reached the doors and were pushing them open when the man said that last sentence and Damen almost tripped at the threshold at the unexpectedness of it all.

“What?”

Nicaise audibly scoffed.

“I would like for you to join Etoile as a social media manager,” the man repeated. “You would be in charge of running what is and isn’t posted on our social media accounts, you would analyze daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly statistics, you would assist in navigating partnerships with other brands, you would help us script videos for any and all occasions, whether it be photoshoots with magazines, interviews during fashion week,” he motioned around them, “and, eventually, as Etoile grows, you would be one of the many needed voices as we begin our own magazine. But keep that last part under wraps for now.”

“Sir, I —”

“You would be based here in Paris, of course, but traveling is part of what makes this industry so desired. There are the Big Four cities that host two fashion weeks every year, those cities being Paris, New York, London, and Milan, but there is also a growing fashion scene in a dozen other cities. Those cities, ones like Shanghai, São Paulo, Sydney, Dubai, Tokyo, and many others, are hosting their own fashion weeks now, and Etoile is itching at the chance to attend those as well. And if any of our models are to be in a magazine, you could be needed anywhere in the world. Last year, my nephew was in Vogue’s September issue and the press surrounding that was enormous. He was in six different cities in just one month.”

As he had talked, he had kept moving towards a sleek black Rolls-Royce whose back passenger door was being held open by a stoic man that definitely wasn’t Jord. Damen had followed until his toes were at the curb of the street.

“You’ll have to forgive me again, sir, for not knowing what to say,” Damen started after it became evident the man was done speaking. “I didn’t expect this. My mind is still trying to process it all.”

The man smiled.

“I don’t need an answer today. We haven’t even begun to talk compensation, though I can assure you the number will be higher than whatever you’re currently thinking of. But I want you to think about it. You would still be able to do what you do in any spare time, you would have the means to travel on your own when nothing was scheduled, and you would be a wonderful asset to Etoile while doing so.” The man nodded once at the stoic driver holding his door open before sliding into the seat. Nicaise boosted himself into the car and slid in as well. His feet were a foot above the car floor.

“I will think about it.” Damen paused again. “I’ll have to tell Nik we’ll both be employed. He won’t know what to think about that.”

“Oh,” the man said, his voice almost sad. “I’m afraid this deal is only for you, Damianos.”

And just like that, all mind whirring and processing came to a sudden halt. Like he’d been for most of this conversation, Damen was speechless, entirely unsure of what to say besides ‘ _What?_ ’ or ‘ _Excuse me?_ ’ or —

“Nikandros is a talented photographer, I don’t want you to mistake my intentions there,” he said. “But Etoile has plenty of photographers ready for work who are specialized in high fashion photography. I don’t think that’s any reason to fret, however. You’ll make plenty of money working for us that neither of you will know what to think, and he will have opportunity to expand his work with the constant events occurring here in Paris. Think of how that will grow his own resume into something even more impressive.”

It was clear the conversation was over as the driver was slowly beginning to shut the door. Damen got one last view of Nicaise’s dangling feet and glittering rings as the boy waved in the rudest way Damen had ever seen anyone wave. Then the man said six words just as the door was closing, his voice prompting.

“We’ll talk after the show tomorrow.”

Damen watched the car drive away, its windows darkened so it was impossible to see the figures inside, and he took in a deep breath that had his chest rising so high that his sweatshirt pulled tightly, if only for a moment. Then he retraced his walk from the Galeries Nationales back to the Nave, all in a near daze, and he found Nik waiting for him with a questioning expression on his face and his camera hanging at his hip.

“Where’d you disappear off to?” Nik asked.

“It’s a long story,” Damen said, shaking his head slightly in disbelief at what the last twenty minutes or so had brought on. “I’ll tell you about it tomorrow. I don’t even know how I’d begin talking about it right now. Let’s talk about this instead.”

“ _This_ is starting to feel overwhelming again,” Nik said. He wasn’t pressing Damen’s disappearance and Damen was grateful. He had a lot more processing to do, a different kind of processing than what he had thought he would be doing, and he didn’t want to ruin Nik’s mood before the show tomorrow. This wasn’t the time for that.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, we’ve been watching the floods of people coming here all for fashion week and it’s as though it’s finally becoming obvious to me just how big this all is. These events are immortalized through their pictures, Damen,” Nik said and he pushed his hair back.

“Nik,” Damen smiled, easing back into something he did know the answers to, “I don’t know what else I could say to tell you how great you are and how great this is all going to be, so I’m just going to ask you to focus on enjoying dinner tonight and trying to remember everything about tomorrow. This really is a once in a lifetime kind of thing and no one is going to be there to immortalize it for you except you.”

Nik didn’t say anything else, just let out a whistle of air that lessened the tension of his body, even just a little bit.

“Are we going to have to dress up again tonight? I’m so tired of suits.”

They did, in fact, have to dress up again tonight. A quick search of Restaurant Le Meurice Alain Ducasse showed them two things; the first thing was that the restaurant was, quite literally, just three buildings down from their hotel, and the second thing was that it was a two Michelin-starred restaurant. Damen dramatically groaned before he pulled his own suit — the only one he actually owned — out of the room’s closet where it had been hanging since they unloaded their bags. As he tugged it on, he suddenly heard Laurent’s voice in his head saying _“My uncle hates black suits. He says it’s the most boring color of suit a man could wear and, as you know by now, Etoile is anything but boring.”_ He smiled, and he smiled even wider when Nik came out wearing a classic black suit as well.

“We can survive one more dinner,” Nik said.

“We can,” Damen said, though his statement sounded less convincing.

“No fighting any old French men that mispronounce my name.”

“I’m not making any promises there.”

“I know you think stuff like that is a big deal,” Nik said, adjusting his tie so the knot was a little looser, “but it’s not. A lot of the people at Etoile are like that, and they’re like that to everyone. Even each other.”

“Just because they’re like that to everyone doesn’t make it okay.” Damen opened the door for the both of them. “If you’re working, you’re part of what keeps everything turning the way it should. The least they can do is learn your name for that.”

“At least he didn’t call me Nikki,” Nik grimaced. A flood of memories came to them both at the name and Damen grimaced as well.

“Kyra was the worst. Nikki!” Damen imitated in a high voice, the hard ‘k’ sound clicking in a purposeful manner. “She tried all sorts of weird nicknames on me too. Dami, ‘Nos. She even tried to call me Big D one time and I shut that down real fast.”

“I think Vannes might start calling you that if you’re not careful around her,” Nik said with warning.

“Let’s hope we can live the rest of our lives without that ever happening again.”

Restaurant Le Meurice Alain was the most Etoile appropriate restaurant Damen could have imagined. Its interior was almost reminiscent of the set design for the show tomorrow, like a tamer Hall of Mirrors with similar white and gold walls, chandeliers, crystal, and grandiose paintings on the walls. It turns out, Damen wasn’t far off at all in that comparison as he quickly found out upon running into Estienne , alone, that this restaurant was inspired by the Salon de la Paix in Versailles. He found out a lot more he truly wasn’t interested in, such as the man that had interpreted and designed the restaurant, the restaurant owner’s philosophy, and the way in which Restaurant Le Meurice Alain truly embodied classic French cuisine. But Damen eventually got away, only to find the restaurant flooded with the very same people from the rehearsal, all of which cleaned up quickly and quite nicely.

Nik had been swept away by a group of antsy people the moment they had been escorted into the room with the white table cloth covered tables and crystal glasses upon every surface, and Damen gave him a wave before he found his attention diverted once again by a hand tugging at the arm of his jacket.

Nicaise.

“That suit is hideous,” Nicaise said, that very unpleasant sneer on his face.

“At least I don’t have to click my heels three times to go home,” Damen said, not missing a beat as he pointedly took in Nicaise’s glittering white dress that complimented the glittering jewels in his hair, all pulled together by rubied shoes that had laced up straps at the beginning of his tiny ankles.

“What?” Nicaise asked.

Damen had no idea how a face so young could look so haughty.

“ _The Wizard of Oz_? No? You’ve never seen _The Wizard of Oz_?” Damen asked incredulously.

“If you’ve watched it, that means it’s probably made for toddlers. My tastes are more sophisticated than that.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Damen said honestly. “But you should check it out. It’s a classic.”

“No, a little black dress is a classic.”

Damen couldn’t help the laugh that exited at that. Nicaise didn’t seem amused at all and actually appeared to get almost angry that Damen was. “What are you laughing at?”

“You. Who taught you to talk the way that you do?”

Before even Nicaise’s quick wit could respond, Laurent’s voice said, “That would be me.” Nicaise visibly seethed.

“That would not be you,” Nicaise said. “I don’t take after anyone but myself.”

Laurent was dressed in a suit that almost matched Damen and Nik’s own. It was a classic black suit with a white undershirt and black shoes. There were a few notable differences though, namely the silk of the lapels and the lack of tie given that the white undershirt was left unbuttoned just enough to be considered a tease with the skin that it revealed. Nicaise clearly wasn’t a fan of the suit. He had the exact same unpleasant sneer on his face looking at it as he had Damen’s suit.

“If you say so,” Laurent said dismissively.

“I do.”

Nicaise’s arms crossed over his chest in a display of defiance, though Damen didn’t truly know what the boy was being defiant about. But then he turned his head to look at somebody or something across the way and it made the jewels in his hair sparkle like rain landing on dark asphalt underneath the lights of a city at night.

“I can’t be seen with you two and your horrid excuses for formal wear,” Nicaise said after a moment. “I’m going.”

“I bet if you ask nicely tonight, someone would let you sip from their wine. You’re almost old enough now, aren’t you?” Laurent asked.

If a look could kill, Damen was certain Laurent would have fallen over dead on the spot. But Laurent was unfazed, staring back with a deadly and steady stare of his own until Nicaise clenched his fists and stormed off to do whatever it was that fourteen year olds did at events such as this one.

“What is it you want with Nicaise?”

Immediately Damen felt ten steps behind in this conversation. There was something in Laurent’s tone as he asked the question, something that would have scared a man that wasn’t Damen.

“Excuse me?” Damen asked, unsure if he had heard correctly.

“What is it you want with Nicaise?” Laurent asked again, his accent coming out heavily on Nicaise’s name.

“I think it’s more what is it he wants with me, and I’m fairly certain the answer to that is merely to insult,” Damen said. Confusion was evident in his voice. “He came over here to tell me how hideous he found my suit.”

Laurent didn’t say anything, but the way he was scanning Damen’s face made Damen feel as though he was being interrogated for something he hadn’t even done. But after a moment, Laurent seemed to relent, settling back on his heels. A server walked by with a tray full of glasses of deep red wine and Laurent grabbed one. Damen didn’t know why exactly, but he was surprised when Laurent took a long, deep drink from it.

“What did you think of the show?” he asked Damen, any and all malice from his previous question dissipated, and then he took another drink.

“It was beautiful,” Damen said, trying to keep up with today’s continued whiplash. “Your uncle has quite an eye for beauty.”

Laurent took another drink after Damen said that. “Indeed. But did you really like it?”

“I was telling your uncle today that I don’t know much about high fashion,” Damen admitted for the second time that day. Laurent finished the wine with one last final long and deep drink. His lips were tinged red close to the seam of his mouth.

“I don’t think anyone thought you knew much about high fashion to begin with. I don’t mean that as an insult either, but merely an observation of your repetitious fashion habits yourself.”

“What do you mean then?” Damen asked. He silently quirked an eyebrow when Laurent grabbed a second glass of wine from another server’s tray as they passed, leaving his old one in its place.

“I heard what you and your friend wore to your first meeting with my uncle. It’s all anyone at Etoile could talk about for days upon your arrival. Then today you wore,” Laurent paused as if trying to remember and he took another drink from his glass then. “You wore joggers. You wore black sweatpants to an Etoile dress rehearsal.”

Unlike when Nicaise spoke, Laurent didn’t necessarily sound offensive. He sounded more like his uncle here, amused by what Damen was saying even if Damen wasn’t trying to be funny. Damen almost preferred Nicaise’s tone.

“Wait, you saw what I was wearing today?” Damen asked instead of letting whatever else Laurent was saying get into his head. He asked it lowly, smiling with a flirtatious smile that came without thought, but Laurent’s blue eyes only flicked away.

“It’s a little difficult to miss the singular person wearing sweatpants while everyone else is dressed for the runway. Quite literally, I might add.”

“I’ll pretend it’s because you couldn’t take your eyes off of me.”

“You pretend that to be truth and I’ll pretend like I can actually eat any of this food tonight. Deal?”

“What do you mean you’ll pretend you can actually eat any of this food tonight?” All casual flirting — the kind that came naturally to Damen’s charm — died at Laurent’s sardonic tone as he struck their imaginary deal.

“Look around you,” Laurent said, lifting one elegant finger to circle the room. “The only people you’ll see eating tonight will be those who work behind the scenes. Everyone else will nitpick at their meal, pretend to eat whilst they prattle on about how overrated Prada’s show will be, and the models won’t eat a thing.”

“Why?”

“To be thin for all the cameras tomorrow. Haven’t you ever seen photos after the Victoria’s Secret show where all the models are picking up In-and-Out the second the show has ended? You seem like a guy that would be familiar with at least that. I haven’t eaten since yesterday. No water either. It makes my collarbones sharp and my cheekbones sharper. All the things the critics will care about beyond the clothes themselves.” Laurent was nearing the end of his second glass. “Thus explaining my diet of alcohol.”

“You’re just going to feel like shit tomorrow though,” Damen said, a worried furrow between his brows at, well, everything Laurent had just said.

“Mmm, no doubt. But after tomorrow I can sleep for the rest of the week if I choose and I very much might choose.”

Damen opened his mouth to respond, to ask about something, or comment on something, but there was an occurrence across the room that had clearly captured Laurent’s attention. From the side, his eyelashes were endless.

“I’m off to placate a fourteen year old before he stabs someone with a fork. I’ll probably grab more wine on my way.” Laurent handed Damen his current wine glass and said over his shoulder, “Enjoy your meal,” before he faded into the throng of people, leaving Damen’s head absolutely spinning.

“What the fuck.”

No one was around to hear it.

“Dude,” Damen started, aware of the crowd now all around him, when he found Nik again. “I can’t wait to get out of here and tell you about my day. You won’t even believe half of the shit that’s gone on.”

Nik looked up at him from the table he was seated at alongside Jeurre and Charls who were having a horribly deep conversation in slurred French. “What the hell could have happened today? We’ve been together half the day. In fact, today’s the first day we haven’t been in separate places all day since last week.”

“I know, but it’s been,” Damen huffed, “a day. I didn’t know I’d be getting stressed out while you were doing the work.”

“Well, dinner is supposed to start in about five minutes if my shoddy French is correct. We’ll talk later about whatever has you all frazzled.”

“We might want to snag a bottle of wine or five before I go into it because it’s seriously that kind of day.”

Nik’s shoddy French was correct though and they were once more treated by courses of food being set in front of them, all delicately plated and each one more delicious than the next. Impossibly, Damen found himself looking for Laurent in the crowds of tables. When he found him, he watched as Laurent did exactly what he said everyone would do. Damen watched as Laurent’s fork moved his food around on his plate, but never once left its surface to his mouth. Damen watched as he drank more wine. Looking around at others, Damen found none of Laurent’s fellow models eating either. It was unnerving, and by the third course Damen found his own appetite had dwindled into almost nothing.

After the entré of silk grain veal, Jeruselum artichokes, and ceps, people began to get up and wander again. Damen caught sight of Nicaise’s sparkling curls as he talked to Laurent’s uncle and received a gentle pat on the cheek before he was herded out the doors by the same stoic man that had driven the two earlier. It made sense as it was nearing nine.

Nik seemed to get along with Talik and her manager especially well and the three were in a conversation that was far over Damen’s head. It was something about lighting, coloring, and the disgrace of it all in regard to those with warm undertoned skin, so Damen skirted around the perimeter of the restaurant hoping to run into Jord. His no-nonsense attitude Damen had had the pleasure of meeting on a few occasions was something he thought would allow him to end his day on a semi-decent, non-dramatic note. But then he saw Laurent and all ideas of that vanished.

Laurent was in the place Nicaise had just been minutes before, talking to his uncle in a way that looked extremely calm and collected. But Damen could see he wasn’t quite as put together as he appeared, could see the way his finger kept tapping at his own leg incessantly, could see the flush of alcohol or anger or both across his ears, face, even the top of his chest underneath his white shirt. Laurent’s uncle did appear extremely calm and collected, however, and there were no signs he was anything but. He was regarding his nephew with patience, listening to whatever Laurent was saying, but Laurent was clearly displeased by the responses he was getting. Then, like it was in slow motion, Damen watched as Laurent turned on his heel and headed determinedly to the door to leave.

Damen saw him stumble. It was just a wiggle really. But Damen saw him stumble, and it was enough to have Damen following.

He cast one last look back at Nik, hoping Nik had seen, hoping Nik would at least see him so he could signal some kind of ‘I’ll be back’, but Nik was listening to Talik who talked louder with her hands than her voice.

Out the doors and on the sidewalk, Damen looked around once, twice, ignoring the welcomeness of the cool air, before he found Laurent leaning against a one-way street sign at the corner. Laurent’s eyes were closed, his head tilted back against the dark metal, and his chest was rising and falling just fast enough that it didn’t look quite natural. Those eyelashes Damen had briefly admired earlier were swooped against the apples of his cheeks.

“Hey.”

Laurent’s eyes opened instantly.

It was more obvious up close how drunk he was. There was a flush to his cheeks, to his ears, to the top of his chest that was most definitely alcohol, and there was a something unfocused in his gaze, as though finding Damen with his eyes required too much effort. Damen wondered how he had kept his balance so well on his own.

“Let me walk you home,” Damen said, taking another step closer.

Head still tilted back against the street sign, Laurent smiled. It wasn’t the small smile Damen had seen on him exactly twice in the few times they had met, but a full smile that reached all the way up to his eyes. Had this been almost any other circumstance, Damen would have told Laurent with all the genuineness in the world that his smile was truly the most beautiful smile Damen had ever seen in his life. But there was something unsettling about it with how today had gone, with how Laurent had just been before he had left the restaurant, with how he had been in his conversation with Damen before that.

“If I wanted someone to take advantage of me drunk, I would go off to one of the hundred parties being held tonight to kick off fashion week,” Laurent said.

Revulsion was like a punch in the gut, quite literally so like one that Damen took a physical step back. “What? No, Laurent, I just want to walk you to your apartment.”

Said apartment was across the street and three buildings down to the right. It would take five minutes, and that would mostly be due to Laurent’s expected stumbling. Still, Laurent made no effort to move, choosing to stay and watch Damen with a wary eye.

“One doesn’t leave the world of silks and bared skin unscathed. Chivalry, my dear brute in shining armor, is but a mask.”

Damen wondered, only for a moment, how Laurent was talking like that in his drunken state, but the deep-seated revulsion that Laurent thought Damen might do something awful to him was heavy. Looking around at the throngs of people still about and the cars still driving on the road, Damen couldn’t let his offer go untaken.

“Let me at least help you cross the street and watch you get into your building.” He put both hands up in a display of surrender. “I won’t follow, I’ll stay right here, but let me watch.”

Laurent’s gaze was still wary and a bit unfocused. “Why?”

“Because you’re beautiful and drunk and people are awful sometimes.” It was another heavy thing. “Plus, if anything happened to you I bet it’d be a nightmare for tomorrow’s show and Nik’s worked too hard for that.”

It took a moment, a moment in which Damen started pulling reasonable arguments to the front of his thoughts in case Laurent continued to be against such a simple request, but Laurent pushed himself away from the sign and swayed ever so slightly before settling.

“Fine. But just across the street.”

“You have my word,” Damen said, making a show of crossing over his heart.

Cast-iron will alone seemed to fuel Laurent into a briefly sober mindset, just long enough for them to cross the street without any issues. Damen knew better than to touch him given how the conversation had been going, but he kept one hand lifted and ready just in case Laurent actually fell. Once on the other side, the side of Laurent’s building, Laurent seemed to be entirely done with talking. He looked at Damen, sweeping over him as though he would find an answer to something, and then he left without so much as a wave or nod or goodbye, goodnight.

As Damen promised, he stayed put on the sidewalk and only watched as Laurent headed toward his apartment so steadily that Damen wondered exactly what Laurent’s alcohol tolerance was. It was only when Laurent reached the entrance that he looked back at Damen. It was one last look, maybe to see if Damen had kept his word, and it lasted only a second. Then he was gone, into the building and, assumingly, up the elevator to his apartment.

Crossing the street once more, Damen stopped at the same one-way street sign Laurent had been at and leaned against it, head tilted back in the same fashion to breathe in the chilled Parisian air. He was tired of trying to think, to make sense of a damn thing that had happened today. All he could think about was how there wasn’t enough alcohol in the world that would get him and Nik both through explaining today’s events.

And gods forbid Nik had any drama of his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whew. i feel like i have a list i want to ramble about down here, but i'm going to try and keep it minimal. first of all, once again, i cannot thank you all enough for reading. it's been so fun. historically, i've never been a prolific writer (perfectionism problems paired with a lack of confidence and, at the time, poor time management skills made it pretty difficult to get things out quickly and/or consistently) and you all have had endless patience with me. it's made me write more in one go than i have in a very long time. so thank you. second of all, i know i said laurent would be in this chapter more and he is, i guess, in it /more/ but it definitely wasn't where i thought he would be. again. it's coming, it's just painstakingly slow (for me. god, i want to write damen and laurent interactions so badly). third of all, we are nearing the end of the regent and nicaise and all of paris, actually, for quite a while. i'm going to miss nicaise, i'm already trying to think of ways i can casually throw him in the rest of the story. fourth of all, man. i should have chosen something else to write about beyond influencers and fashion because i know nothing about either and i'm researching a lot to make it seem half-believable. fifth of all, i think the akielon tech thing might come as something unexpected and i have no idea if it will play a large or small role in the story, long term. as of now, it's a small thing, all things considered. damen does have a background that's a bit different from our books given that he doesn't quite want to be his father in this. he has a complicated relationship with his father, something i think that is true in the books as well but he was more easily blinded. so we'll see how that plays out as theomedes is planned out for a chapter or four. maybe more. idk. 
> 
> next chapter is the show which, all things considered, will be horribly anticlimactic given that we've all just seen the show in this chapter. i have more things in mind though. then, chapter 10, my real fun with this begins <3 it's also where i'll go more into detail about aimeric, ancel, and laurent's outfits so i'll link some inspirations for those there.
> 
> here's a link to some chanel fashion show set designs that inspired the elaborate etoile set <3
> 
> https://www.elle.com/uk/fashion/news/g29699/chanel-show-sets-cruise-couture-autumn-winter-spring-summer/?slide=8
> 
> once again, thank you so very much for reading!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, all! i'm sorry for the long wait between chapters 8 and 9. it wasn't intentional, but life is just insane right now. tbh i couldn't do much of anything during the two weeks leading up to and during the united states' election. 
> 
> but i thank you all so incredibly much for reading and commenting and for making me feel like i can (kind of, sort of maybe?) do this, i.e. write a fic this long, write in general, all that fun stuff. it really means the world. honestly, i dedicate this chapter (and the continued appearance of nicaise) to maca @thickenmyblood because she's been all kinds of amazing to me about this nightmare of a story ❤
> 
> quick two things! the first is that i'm doing the secret santa exchange for capri and i can't say anything as it's secret and all that. what little i can say is that it is getting away from me to say the least, and unlike 'the mannequin gallery,' it has a deadline. so i'm going to try to get chapter 10 (and maybe chapter 11 👀) out at reasonable times aka in this calendar year, but i can't make any promises. i hope if anyone is sad about that or anything they can be consoled by knowing there's a fun holiday-themed fic coming that will be, at least, 40k. the second thing is that i have instagrams for the capri characters in this fic! they were private because i was just using them for screenshots and whatnot, but i had some requests on discord to make them public so they are now.
> 
> laurent's: @ laurentdevere  
> damen's: @ damianosakielos  
> nik's: @ nik.delpha
> 
> if you want to check them out you can lol they're nothing spectacular, but i'm having fun with them
> 
> let's see, warnings: there's some really gross, as the usa's soon-to-be ex-president would call it, 'locker room talk.' other than that, i think it's okay?? let me know if there's anything that should be warned!

Rustling from across the room woke Damen up from sleep. When he pried open his eyes, he was met with utter darkness, all except for his extremely familiar clock blinking in red numbers at him, ‘4:11.’ Damen groaned, threw the pillow over his head, and gruffed out, “Are we ever going to wake up at normal hours again or is this life from here on out?”

Nik, who was the source of the rustling, didn’t look up from the duffle bag he was rummaging through when he said, “I mean, maybe. If you take that job, it definitely might be your life from here on out. Though, to be honest, I’m not sure what all a social media manager is supposed to do.”

Damen groaned again.

Last night, after the whirlwind of yesterday’s events, Damen finally managed to tell Nik all that he could. He began where the craziness had, telling of the demon spawn from Etoile’s office leading him to an impromptu meeting where he was offered a job without Nik. Then Damen went on to explain how the same demon spawn was harassing him at the rehearsal party and that, somehow for some reason, led to an interrogation by Laurent who snapped back to normal so fast it gave Damen whiplash. By this point in his storytelling, Nik was already drinking again and Damen still had more to tell. He finished by telling of Laurent not eating, and none of the other models eating either, before telling of the apparent fight between Laurent and his uncle and Laurent’s followed drunken escape and insinuation Damen might try something unseemly.

“Basically,” Damen had ended last night, “I can’t wait to get out of here. And we’re never doing anything with models again. Not ever.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Nik had said before downing the remainder of a bottle.

Later, and much more quietly, Nik had asked a still-not-sober-enough Damen, “Were you thinking of taking the job?”

The tone of the question had had Damen looking away from the details on the ceiling to look at his friend. Outwardly, Nik had looked as he always did. Outwardly, Nik might as well have been asking what Damen wanted for breakfast when they woke up to start the day tomorrow. But there was something intoning, something that had Damen wishing he desperately had another drink suddenly.

“Hell no. I like to think I’m a pretty good guy, but working with people like the ones we’ve met? I might go homicidal.”

That had seemed to drive away whatever had possessed the tone of Nik’s voice, but the memory of it — and everything else — flooded Damen’s mind at Nik’s lighthearted jab of the job offering. No part of him wanted to face the Etoile entourage today, but every part of him wanted to get today over with so things could go back to a semblance of normalcy. That, and his refusal to allow Nik to go about this alone, were the only things that made him get up.

Damen stood and stretched, arms high above his head, and his shoulder popped loudly, the joint both grateful and full of protest at the movement. Cool air swept over his sleep-warmed torso and he walked behind Nik to go and begin brushing his teeth in the bathroom. “Do I need to wear the suit right now?” he asked around a mouthful of toothpaste. “The show’s not until 10:30.”

“Just bring it along,” Nik said, his voice muffled as his head was half inside his duffle bag now. Then, with something akin to a flourish, he found a lens that must have gotten misplaced at some point and began to clean it. On the bed were already three other lenses, each one shiny and perfect. “They said we can change in the dressing room with the models.”

“Living every guy’s dream,” Damen said. He turned and spit into the sink.

As he only had to bother with bringing the suit in its garment bag, Damen was ready to leave in a matter of minutes. Nik hefted his own bag over his shoulder and shook his hair out of his face. Then he grimaced in Damen’s direction.

“Seriously?”

Damen looked around himself, looked down, looked up, and looked back at Nik and mocked his face. “What?”

“I know I said bring the suit along, but you literally threw on a sweatshirt and...and that’s it.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve gotten all bougie hanging around the models,” Damen said, adjusting his own bag where it was knocking at the backs of his knees.

“When did you start saying bougie?” Nik asked in response, laughing now.

“I don’t know. I think the kids are saying it.”

“Seriously, though, can you at least try?”

“I promise, cross my heart and everything, to actually put effort in when we start getting ready. Maybe I’ll even steal some fancy hair gel or something. Deal?” Damen said.

Nik sighed. “Fine. But I want you to put on that gaudy suit and own it. I want you to behave as if Etoile has been the air you’ve breathed for the last twenty-seven years of your life. If I have to be seen out in public with you like this,” he motioned at the frumpled hem of Damen’s sweatshirt, “it’s the least I, and the rest of the patrons of Paris, deserve.”

“Let’s go then,” Damen said, and he shoved at Nik’s back to get him moving. “I need coffee first.”

“No time. We’re going right to the Grand Palais.”

“No time?”

Nik had been serious about the ‘no time.’ They were lucky that the streets were mostly empty and they could get to the Grand Palais without a fuss, because when they got there it was, in apparently constant Etoile fashion, bustling. They didn’t appear to be the last ones, or even remotely close to being the last ones, because neither of them saw a single model. Instead it was Charls and his crew running around like the world was possibly ending, though if Damen were to be given three guesses as to why, he would bet he’d be ruled correct when he said the others were feeding off of Charls’ energy.

“How long does it take to set up the same shit they set up yesterday?” Damen asked Nik from the corner of his mouth.

“I don’t know, but I know that yesterday they were like this for two hours straight. And, as you can tell, the models aren’t even here yet and I don’t know when they will be.”

“Well, they’re clearly preoccupied and you’re probably about to be as well. I’m going to use this time to get myself some kind of caffeine. I’ll be back in less than an hour.”

“Damen,” Nik sighed.

“Forty minutes,” Damen tried again. “It’ll keep me out of the way and will let you settle in. Do you want anything?”

“No. I don’t need anything adding to my jitters.”

“You’re going to be great, and I’m going to be caffeinated. I’ll see you in a bit.”

Damen turned and exited the very doors he and Nik had just entered through. The sun was low in the sky and the city was dark and its air damp from the river. A quick look at his phone said it was a few minutes nearing five and he was certain there had to be some Parisian café open to the earliest of customers. Logically, he knew he could have searched it on his phone and found an answer, but the city was quiet. Damen opted to simply walk instead, eyes peeled for a storefront alive with lights.

A bell, somewhere in the distance, chimed out with a song, its ringing carrying across the city, the melody travelling with the breeze, and Damen sighed into the chilled air. The bell’s song ended, then came the singular sounds, bass so low he felt it in the pit of his stomach, indicating the time. _One. Two. Three. Four. Five._

He crossed a bridge, stopping for only a moment to peer down into the dark waters of the Seine. The tops of the ripples and waves were golden with streetlight and the last bits of moonlight, but when the ripples settled and the waves fell, it was all pitch black. There was a beauty in its darkness, in the remembrance of the history of a place like this, and it all seemed that much more beautiful when, in the dying of the bell chiming came from just a block away the faint sound of music.

Pushing off of the stone railing of the bridge, Damen followed the music. It got closer, or rather he got closer, as he turned down the first street the rest of the way across the bridge. There, along with the music, were the storefronts alive with lights. There were only a few stores with lights on, but there were enough that Damen could make out the few people out and about as he was in the before-dawn streets of Paris; or, in the case of one gentleman he saw, still out from the evening. One front was a bar, though it appeared to be in the quick process of closing for the day, the sign turned on the door and all the lights off except for the one overhead a bartender at a register counting the drawer. Another was a bakery, its inside in a similar state as the bar in regard to a singular man, only this man was dusted with flour and rolling some kind of dough on the flat surface of the counter. But there, almost the storefront at the corner of the end of the street, was a café.

Coffee shop would probably be a more appropriate term for this place. As Damen came right upon it, he immediately wanted to go inside. It was a hole-in-the-wall looking place, no big signs outside announcing its name, no fancy gold seats like the café closer to the hotel, and the only thing Damen could think was cozy. Perhaps that came too from the small, intimate space inside, only one couch at the window and two other seats possible to sit in, or perhaps it came from the warm color of the walls or the bookshelf, however small, perched above the seat nearest the door. Or perhaps, as expected, it was the delicious smell of coffee wafting from underneath the door, the two baristas inside hard at work.

There wasn’t an open sign on the door, but there was a person inside, sitting comfortably on the couch and hidden in a book. The worst thing that could happen was the baristas told Damen they weren’t open quite yet and he turned and went on his way. But, not wanting to overlook such a place, he pushed open the door, its own little bell ringing out, clear and high.

“Are you open?” he asked in French, pitching his voice lower as to not disturb the reader on the couch. Both baristas nodded yes, one smiling wide, and Damen bid them both a good morning. “I’m glad. It’s just cold enough out there I need the caffeine to both get through the day and to warm my hands.”

He ordered his usual, a simple espresso shot, and it came to him quickly in a small white cup, the liquid hot and welcome.

“What are the chances?” a voice sounded out from behind him quite suddenly and Damen, who had been attempting to figure out which of the two available seats he should take, nearly tripped over a chair leg in his attempt to acknowledge the person whose face had been in the book the entire time.

There, on the couch, was Laurent.

He looked the least like the Laurent that Damen had seen yet. He looked, for lack of a better word, cozy, like the shop. His lithe form was drowning in a baby blue sweatshirt that was plain in everything except for the lettering going vertically up his left side that said ‘Givenchy.” His legs, which were curled up close to his chest, were swathed in simple black, the sweats high quality but unnamable, and on his feet were simple white tennis shoes. The blond of his hair was loose and spilling over one shoulder and the blue of his sweatshirt made his eyes pop, the color of the it reflecting in them the same way the lights of the city had reflected on the dark water of the Seine.

The sight struck Damen somewhere deep in his chest and he became all too aware of two things. The first was that this was the first time Damen had seen Laurent in something not meant to be on a runway, for even his clothing when Damen and Nik had ran into him outside of his apartment all those days ago would have looked perfectly in place on a stage; his face was cleared of makeups, his hair free of products, and he was dressed as twenty-somethings did when dressing casually (minus the price tag of the sweatshirt which had to be over two thousand). The second thing was that he looked more beautiful than ever, as though the comforts of a sweatshirt and tennis shoes softened him into something Damen was terrified to reach out and touch because he might break him.

“I mean, honestly,” Laurent continued, as if totally unaware of Damen’s crisis at hand, “what are the chances?”

“Laurent,” Damen said. Laurent’s name left his mouth like the first gasp of air after being underwater too long and Damen cleared his throat, bringing his espresso closer to his chest. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

Unexpectedly, Laurent shifted on the sofa, leaving plenty of room for Damen to join him. He looked smaller like that, curled on the sofa with a worn cushion nestled behind him. On the stage, he looked like a god, like Apollo, swimming in gold and larger than life. It was the angle, the length of his legs, Damen reminded himself, but it didn’t change the fact that it was how it felt. But here he looked — Damen didn’t finish the thought. Instead, after a moment’s hesitancy, he sat down.

“I’m hiding,” Laurent provided, just as Damen was settling. “I don’t have to be at the Grand Palais until six-thirty, but, as per usual, I was told I would not be given any food or anything to drink this morning. I can forgo food, but caffeine is a necessity. Not getting it will only lead to a massive headache that will put me in a murderous mood. This café is far enough away I doubted anyone from the show would wander over. Yet, here you are.”

Damen didn’t respond to that right away. Instead he said, “Your normal mood isn’t murderous? Gods, I’d hate to see you get to that point then.”

It was said jokingly, but as soon as the words left Damen’s mouth, they brought with them an onslaught of memories from only last night, each one so concrete in detail because of the closeness in time. Laurent’s scathing interview after Nicaise had insulted Damen to the nth degree, his clenched fists as he talked quietly with his uncle, the ease in which he told Damen, a smile on his face and everything, that if he wanted to get assaulted he would have just gone to a party, the way he didn’t want help, didn’t trust help, to even get across the street.

As if reading his mind, Laurent spoke in a voice Damen had yet to hear from him. It wasn’t a quiet voice necessarily, something that may have been expected in this context, but it was absolute in its apology. It made Damen dizzy.

“I’m sorry about last night. I don’t remember all of it, but I remember enough to know you helped me to not get ran over by a car, despite whatever insulting things I had no doubt said to your face.”

“You seemed stressed yesterday. Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m not worried about it. But I am sorry. I’m normally much more controlled than that,” Laurent said. He fell back further into the cushions, his blue sweatshirt pooling around his arms. It looked like it was almost too big for him with the way it fell down to cover his hands.

“What made last night different?” Damen asked.

“This and that,” Laurent said vaguely. He took a sip out of the cup in his hand and Damen watched with amusement as Laurent’s mouth puckered and he squeezed his eyes shut as if to block out the taste that way. Sensing Damen’s eyes on him, hearing the small chuckle he had let out, Laurent brought the cup away from his lips to say, “I didn’t get my usual additives of milk and sugar. It’s not exactly pleasant.”

“That’s just espresso?” Laurent nodded and took another painful sip. “Why not get something you like? This looks like torture for you.”

“It is. Very much so. But, as I told you, I came here because I knew they wouldn’t allow me anything once I arrived at the show. I couldn’t make it obvious I had anything though, thus, a disgusting, bitter, black espresso shot is what I get.”

“But what —”

“As I do remember telling you this last night, it’s all in relation to not eating leading up to a show. Even a simple cup of coffee or latte could lead to bloating. We don’t even drink water for the same reason. Water weight, and all that,” Laurent said.

“That seems excessive.”

“You look like a guy that likes to workout,” Laurent said, and before he continued the sentence he downed the rest of his espresso in a quick gulp, like a child trying to take medicine before the taste registered. “What’s the best way to show muscle definition?”

“Dehydration,” Damen answered quickly, then it was his turn to make a face. “But it’s not healthy to do, especially often.”

“You can tell my uncle that.”

Damen allowed the silence to speak for him then. Outside, the city was coming more to life with every passing minute. Damen could see shop owners arriving and slipping inside their businesses, ready to begin the day. He could see men in suits, harried and on the phone already, walking down the street with purpose unbecoming of such early hours still. He could feel those blue eyes watching him watch the city.

Then Laurent said, the tone to his voice much more familiar, “Tell me you’re not wearing that. Or, if you are, tell me you’re going to not associate with anyone that is part of Etoile. Not a one of us has the time to explain why we’re dealing with obvious amateurs.”

“We’re wearing the exact same thing,” Damen said, looking down at the sweatshirt and sweatpants protecting his body from the chilled air.

“No. I’m wearing Givenchy, steamed free of wrinkles. You’re wearing —” Laurent trailed, “Champion? Or is that outfit from a convenience store?”

“First of all, this is all Nike. Second of all, it was all a gift from Nike leading up to the release of their new winter stuff last year.”

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry,” Laurent said, sounding anything but. “I wasn’t aware I was in the presence of fame. Can I get your autograph?”

“You’re really telling me this mood isn’t murderous?” Damen asked and, gods help him, he was laughing.

“This is me being quite pleasant, I assure you.”

“Well, if it qualms any of your worries about your dear status here in Paris, I’ll have you know that your uncle had Charls create a suit just for me to wear at the show today and it, direct quote from the note inside of the bag, ‘will bring out the warmth of my skin.’ Your embarrassment can be staved yet another day,” Damen said.

Chin perched on his own hand, Laurent scanned Damen up and down. Then his lips quirked up, just at the corners, and it was suddenly far too hot in this sweatshirt. “I bet Charls is having a grand time fitting you. He’s not accustomed to people quite so —” and then Laurent stopped himself.

Instinctually, Damen leaned in closer. “So what?”

“So culturally simple,” Laurent finished.

Damen leaned back, and rubbed at his neck. He hadn’t meant to —

Just then, Laurent’s phone vibrated on the table in front of them and Damen watched as Laurent grabbed it and silenced the sound.

“And with that, I must be off. Charls will have a coronary if I’m even a minute late.”

Copying Laurent’s earlier move, Damen quickly downed the rest of his espresso. “I’ll walk with you. Since we’re going to the same place.”

They brought their cups to the bin near the front where workers could later gather them and then they were off, the bell to the shop ringing behind them, its fading followed by a flash of light from inside.

Outside, Damen had to sidestep several people to keep up with Laurent’s confident stride. Every moment, a new onslaught of cars or pedestrians or even busses seemed to be arriving in this area of the city, each one adding to the growing chaos. With a kind of fascination, Damen watched as people getting out of cars lugged heavy camera equipment, watched as people getting off of one of the busses — the oldest of them not possibly older than twenty-five — descended its steps in insane shoes, watched as garment bags were carried this way and that by undescriptable people.

“Is this all for fashion week?” Damen asked.

“Where have you been? It’s been like this since three days ago,” Laurent answered. The sun was finally over the horizon.

“I’ve been at rehearsals and parties and whatnot all for Etoile. I didn’t realize Paris itself got like this.”

“We’re the fashion capital of the world. Every year gets more intense, more insane, than the last.” They were crossing the bridge over the Seine now. “Just be thankful you haven’t been assaulted by the influencers. Oh, wait. You are one.”

“I am not,” Damen said, annoyance heavy in an instant. “And what do you mean assaulted by them?”

“Don’t you follow the tabloids? Every year, we get more and more famous Instagram stars or YouTube stars or whatever the newest craze is that think they belong in our front rows. Or, in some awful cases, that think they belong in our shows. And they show up, acting like the next best thing whilst the rest of us, who have worked for what we have, bristle at their lack of critical thinking. It’s quite fun. The most fun I have is bitching with the rest of the Etoile group over the one thing we all have in common: the hatred of entitlement.”

Once again, Damen chose one particular thing to latch onto. “You can have fun then? You’re not entirely incapable?”

Laurent’s lips quirked again. “I’m not above setting security on you.”

They finished the rest of their excursion to the Grand Palais in silence, Laurent’s eyes ahead and Damen’s unable to decide if they wanted to look at the city or at Laurent more. The closer they got to the building, the more evident it became that there was a line forming outside the entrance, and an official one at that. It was roped off by velvet ropes, ones that kept the direct walkway out of public reach. When directly in front of the building, let in by Laurent’s face only, Damen watched the frenzied crowd that only continued growing.

Damen felt like an athlete awaiting his time to take to the field.

“Does this not bother you?’ he asked as they ducked in the door.

“I’ve done many of these. Even if it did, I’d be long used to it by now.”

They were walking right through, not being given any attention from the bustling that rushed over them with a wave of anxiousness. It only added to the feeling low in Damen’s chest.

“That wasn’t a yes,” Damen said. He narrowly avoided running into a man pushing a cart with boxes stacked double of his entire height.

“It wasn’t a no either,” Laurent said.

Somehow they had made it all the way to the elaborate stage from yesterday. It looked just as magical, just as identical to the Hall of Mirrors, as it had the day before and Damen was still floored at the dedication to its artistry. Charls was on the stage, shaky fingers pointing people this way and that way and, like time slowed, Charls turned and, catching sight of Laurent, made a noise near inhuman.

“There you are!” the designer said, bustling quickly down the stairs.

“Yes, Charls. And I’m earlier than you asked me to be. As I always am.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Charls fretted, “I’m just always so relieved to see you walk through the door. It calms me tremendously.”

“I’m glad,” Laurent said. He sounded like he genuinely meant it.

“Good luck today,” Damen said as Charls began to lead Laurent away, back toward where the dressing rooms were far behind the stage.

“Thank you,” Laurent said curtly, his tone much crisper with just those two words alone than it had been the entire morning. Charls didn’t seem to be paying them any mind, his own thoughts far too focused on getting Laurent in the dressing room quickly and seamlessly, but Laurent seemed hyper-aware of Charls’ presence in that instant. Then he was gone.

For the next hour, Damen roamed. He felt more comfortable doing so than he had yesterday, and it was fascinating to watch everything behind the scenes come into place if he were being honest. If he had thought the sessions that had been arranged in those earliest weeks had been busy, or if he had thought the dress rehearsal yesterday had been busy, those were nothing in comparison to what was happening today. Models were arriving entirely un-modeled up, some of them, but not many, unrecognizable with their undone faces and hair and normal clothes, and a few were stopped at the door by Vannes who snatched beverages from a handful of them, mumbling something in French that Damen couldn’t discern from where he was standing, but that sounded unkind. At one point there was yelling from somewhere in the back, and the set designers were spending equal amounts of time running between the expensive seats set up for the crowd and the atual set itself, doing the most mundane things like painting a bolt on the back wall, near the bottom, gold.

At seven-thirty, the doors opened to let in the second round of crew members, this group consisting of the lighting and technology company, a catering crew that Damen noted wouldn’t be providing food to the models, and, unexpectedly Damen’s possible new boss.

Etoile’s creator was dressed the part for a man that owned a modeling and clothing design company. His suit dripped with money, from the quality of the material to the gold fitted to his cufflinks, his belt, his lapel, and even the buckles of his shoes. But other than the gold, it was a tame suit, predominantly a deep red with flashes of white to compliment the gold. At the entrance, he stopped and talked to Vannes, the two of them speaking lowly. Then the man gave a nod and kept walking, walking right into a yell of cheers at his arrival, led by Charls and several of the honey-eyed boys that would be walking first.

A tap on the shoulder stole Damen’s attention.

“How was your coffee?” Nik asked, and even though he had just tapped Damen’s shoulder, he was already fiddling with the camera in his hands.

“Good,” Damen said. He reached out and made Nik stop moving, pushing the camera to Nik’s chest. “Laurent was there.”

“Why would you say that to me? Can you not see that I’m already at the point I’m near crawling out of my own skin? There’s no reason to add to my stress.”

“It was fine,” Damen said, laughing. “I didn’t tell you that to stress you out, I just told you because it was unexpected.”

“He didn’t kill you so I suppose it wasn’t too bad,” Nik said. “And whispers are that he’s in a tolerable mood today. The whispers also say that can change faster than a strike of lightning, but we’re all hoping for the best.”

“His uncle did just arrive so I wouldn’t put that thought too far back in your mind.”

“Great.”

Outside, though it was incredibly muffled, the bells Damen had heard on his earlier excursion began to chime again. _One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight._

“Oh heavens,” Damen and Nik heard from the stage and there was Charls again, looking ready to faint at the next thing that made him startle. “Attention, everyone, attention!” he called out, his voice ringing from the glass ceiling and the multitudes of mirrors in the room. “It is eight in the morning which means the doors will be opening in one hour for the show. That means it is time. It is time to get the models makeuped and dressed, it is time to test the sound and the lights, it is time to run through every scenario in which something could go drastically wrong and ensure we have a solution in place. This is it. The press will be let in first and that will tell the world what we are doing here today. Places, everyone!”

“They told me we could go get ready now alongside the models,” Nik said, hanging his camera around his neck.

“Most of the models have been here since before seven. What have they been doing the last hour?”

“Warming up. They had them doing stretches and exercises to loosen their joints and get their legs ready for walking and complete stability or whatever Herode was rambling about.”

Damen pursed his mouth in thought. “That makes sense.”

“Does it?” Nik asked.

“I’d like to see you get up there and walk across that stage in heels and not fall on your face,” Damen said.

“I bet you would like to see that,” Nik joked, and then dodged a thwack from Damen. And for a brief moment, surrounded by gold and glass instead of the vastness of the ocean, they were twelve again, roughhousing their way to the back room before quick composure had them standing upright and tall.

The door to the dressing room was shut, but the noise from inside was loud and brought with it a spike of something akin to anxiety.

“Let’s see what you’ve gotten us into,” Damen said.

The dressing room was, of course, not like a standard dressing room, because Etoile did nothing simply standard, not even its behind-the-scenes stuff. Everything was white, stark white to be precise; the walls were unblemished, not a color in sight, and everything else was white as well, as if it was saying ‘Look at these models. Their beauty is all the decoration needed.’ Lining the left wall was a seemingly endless line of vanities, each adorned with a mirror dotted with bright lights for the makeup artists, and several models were in the chairs, getting their makeup and hair done. To the right were two separate stations, one being full-body mirrors and a stand for models to wait on as the design team fiddled with their clothing and spent excessive amounts of time making sure there wasn’t a wrinkle in sight, a tear the width of a strand of hair, and so on, and the other station was a finalizing station near the door with an empty chair was waiting for Laurent’s uncle to make sure everything was approved before he sent them out. Near the back of the room were clothing racks stuffed with clothing, some of the garment bags almost exploding with how much fabric they contained, and that’s where Damen could spot Charls, Vannes, and Herode.

In the makeup chair closest to the door, Ancel was getting his red hair teased to a high, the fiery strands cascading over one shoulder like a crimson waterfall. When he saw Damen and Nik in his peripheral vision, he turned just a little more and winked before saying, “Can I just say thank you to whoever brought the eye candy for us? For so long we’ve been the only eye candy in the room, and I’m not sure many of us are each other’s tastes, but these two make a majority of us very happy.”

Nik held back a groan of something, Damen could practically feel the metaphoric grip he had on it, but Damen, much better with this kind of attention, walked on in and said in response, “We aim to please,” and Ancel let out a noise that could have practically been a purr.

Over on one of the stools the models were getting dressed at, some already draped in fabrics, others getting refitted due to something gone wrong, was Aimeric who was getting sandals laced all the way up to his knees by a frazzled looking woman who undid the knots at least four times, clearly unhappy with how they looked.

Several other models were in the expected places. Damen spotted a sandy-haired boy with a beautiful curl to the ends of his hair — Erasmus, Damen thought his name was — getting a pair of pants hemmed by a design intern, and near him was a dark-haired boy with a hand on Erasmus’ bare shoulder, the hold almost protective in the curl of the boy’s fingers. A boy with skin the shade of chestnut was getting glittery body oil with gold flecks applied to his chest, the brush being used large and round and moving in perfect clockwise circles. Near the back, one model was stripped down to almost nothing, standing patiently whilst Vannes, now moved from her conversation with Charls and Herode, was scanning the clothing racks for the right bag.

“I didn’t know they let animals back here,” came the unmistakable voice of the devil Nicaise who, with strength unbefitting his size, shoved past Damen and Nik, going as far as to walk between them, breaking the trance of watching the organized chaos of model-magic coming to life. He was dressed like a model, unsurprisingly, his small form bathed in a deep red dress with sheer sleeves covered in sparkling gold. The red brought out the rosiness of his cheeks, a sign of the youth still there, and strewn throughout his hair were similar gold specks, each one flawlessly places as though he was naturally as shimmering as he appeared.

“Gods above, I’m going to go take some pictures of everyone getting ready,” Nik mumbled, a furrow between his eyebrows made only deeper with every second Nicaise stood there, a hand on his tiny hip.

“Yeah, they let us out into society sometimes to see how civilized people work,” Damen said, not missing a beat. Nik was already halfway across the room, raising a hand to Jeurre who was talking with his nose upturned to a cowering boy helping set up drinks and food.

“Where’s your collar with your owner’s number on it? I’d like to call and report you missing. Maybe they’ll send out animal control,” Nicaise said.

“Nicaise,” came yet another unmistakable voice and there, in one of the chairs, was Laurent again. He must have been blocked by his makeup artist when Damen walked in, that was the only way Damen would have missed him. He was wearing a white robe, one tied loosely at the waist, coming down only below his knees, and at the legs it was falling open some, revealing one thigh the same color as the robe. His eyes were shut, the makeup artist applying delicate strokes of gold on the space of his eyelid. To allow the makeup artist access, Laurent’s head was tilted back so his eyes were higher, but it only showed Damen the elegant column of his neck leading to the sharp lines of his collarbone. “No one needs you back here antagonizing. Wait until after the show.”

“Gold washes you out. Has anyone ever told you that?” Nicaise asked, his attention switching from Damen to Laurent quickly.

Eyes still closed, Laurent smiled. “I’ll make sure to avoid gold in the future then.”

“I think gold looks good on you,” Damen said. Nicaise’s attention quickly switched back.

“Well we’re all aware of your lack of taste so that’s not surprising in the least.”

“What are you doing back here, Nicaise?” The line of gold on Laurent’s eyelid had been exaggerated in the minute they’d been talking, the thin line of the wing extended far out beyond his actual eye.

“Watching your final show come to close,” Niciase said. “I figure this is the closest I’ll ever get to watching something like an execution.”

The makeup artist put away the liquid gold she’d been using and reached now for a brown contouring stick. With practiced precision she made a line underneath the dip of each of Laurent’s cheekbones then grabbed a rounded brush. She blended the brown line in until it was smudged and faded, appearing as a natural shadow that emphasized the fine structure of Laurent’s face, made him look sharper and more untouchable.

“Just think,” Laurent started, “in a few years you’ll be in my exact position. I suppose it is good that you witness this.”

Nicaise flushed immediately at the words, the color all the way at his ears, and it matched the blush the makeup artist was now applying to the tops of Laurent’s cheeks.

“I’m never going to be like you,” Nicaise said, and the venom with which he spit those words out had Damen feeling as though he was hearing something he wasn’t supposed to be hearing.

“No?”

“No, I’m going to be better than you,” Nicaise said. “I’ll be better than you in every way.”

“I hope you are,” Laurent said.

“You’re intolerable,” Nicaise said, ears still red and venom still on his tongue. “I’m leaving.”

“Yes, I’m sure my uncle will want you right next to him one last time. I’ll see you after the show, alright?”

Nicaise, shoving past Damen again and, even though Nik wasn’t there, stepping on his foot, said over his shoulder, “I hope you fall flat on your face,” and then he was gone.

Laurent’s eyelashes, now darkened with mascara, were incredibly long. They rested on the blushed apples of his cheeks, the black of them a drastic contrast to his pale skin, but it was their length that had Damen staring. He hadn’t anticipated Laurent opening his eyes though, hadn’t anticipated what a lining of gold and a darkening of his lashes could do to the blue of his eyes. They made eye contact in the mirror and, for an illicit moment, Damen felt the electric shock of want hit him, felt the desire to see if Laurent’s golden hair felt as silk to the touch as it appeared.

“You still haven’t changed,” Laurent said. “I do hope you weren’t lying about embarrassing us all.”

“I’m getting ready to put my suit on right now, thank you,” Damen said, finding his voice. “I was actually looking for a place to change.”

Laurent hummed, the noise sounding near amused. “We don’t have places to change. We simply change.”

It made sense. Of course, Damen hadn’t been quite honest when he said he was looking for a place to change because he was mostly coming up with an excuse to not sound as winded as he felt, but thinking on it now...yes, he thought, taking a cursory glance around the room to the models in nearly nothing a they got fitted, there wouldn’t be a place to change.

“I promise no one will bite. Actually,” Laurent contemplated, “Ancel might. But everyone else is harmless.”

Nik had hung their bags near the back of the room, both off to the side as to not get mixed in with the models’ things, and Damen could see his hanging there, the note Charls had left on it visible from even this distance.

“I’m not shy,” Damen said. “I was trying to avoid having you fall desperately in love with me. But I guess there’s no help for you now.”

“My delicate sensibilities,” Laurent started, his voice superficially whiny, near mocking. Then he stood from the chair and began to untie his robe. “It’s as though I’ve never seen anyone in minimal clothing.”

The robe fell.

Damen hadn’t lied when he said he wasn’t shy; in Greece, he grew up wearing hardly any clothing, his adventurous self far too busy spending as much time in the ocean as humanly possible. And even when he wasn’t in the ocean, he was usually right by it, lounging outside at his family’s home in nothing but a pair of shorts or walking the shops that lined the water in the same thing. He wasn’t arrogant, or oblivious, enough either to not be aware that part of his and Nik’s following came from the lack of clothing Damen seemed to spend most of his time donning (or not donning). After all, the forever-loading comment section on every photo of fire emojis or the water dripping emoji or the panting-face emoji told him that.

Other people’s nakedness had never bothered him either. One didn’t bed as many people as Damen had in his lifetime and were bothered by nudity. But Damen was used to expecting it, was used to others making a show of it. His bed partners usually tried to be alluring with the way they lifted shirts over their heads, the way they revealed inch by inch of skin -- unless it was a quickie in an airport bathroom or something. Laurent didn’t do that; the robe simply fell, pooling on the floor in a puddle of satin white, and leaving Laurent in nothing but an equally satined, and poor excuse for, underwear that came up high on his hips as to not clash with the high slit in one singular pant-leg of his runway outfit that showed just enough skin to be considered temptation.

But Laurent wasn’t one of his bed partners.

That didn’t mean Damen didn’t want to know if his skin felt just as smooth as the satin of the robe now on the floor. It looked like it would.

Unbothered, Laurent walked over to one of the stands. Though all the models were each in similar states of undress, Laurent drew eyes to him as he walked, drew eyes as he accepted one of the designers hands to stand by the full-length mirrors. Damen could see Laurent’s face in the mirror, could see the shadows of his eyelashes again as he was looking down and talking to the same designer. Damen could see his ass which was near enough to short circuit his brain.

Across the room, Nik called for him.

“Please get dressed,” Nik said, his voice having taken on a near pleading tone.

“I was getting ready to.”

“No, you were getting ready to do or say something stupid to Laurent who, unaware of the fact that you have no ability to not stare at every beautiful blond you, stripped down to nothing in front of you,” Nik said. He shoved the garment bag in Damen’s hands.

“He’s —” Damen started.

“Don’t finish that sentence. I can guess what you’re going to say.”

They were somewhat behind the clothing racks, the most privacy offered in this room, and Damen, without hesitancy, ripped his sweatshirt over his head and shucked off his sweatpants in a matter of seconds, leaving him too in his underwear which was a nice tight pair of black briefs. Nik began to do the same, less quickly than Damen, and that’s when a wolf-whistle reached their ears.

“Now they’re giving us a show,” Ancel said and immediately half of the room was looking at them.

“I’m going to kill myself or them,” Nik muttered only loud enough for Damen to hear and he was unzipping the garment bag with enough force to nearly break the zipper. “I can’t decide.”

“Just ignore them,” Damen muttered back, holding in a breath of laughter, as Ancel began to have a very loud, and very graphic conversation about Damen or Nik or both’s cocks like they weren’t even in the room.

Nik’s suit was as he said it would be, black, black, black. It was nicely made, the material Etoile quality, but it was simplistic, all neat and straight lines, no embroidering, no odd tie, no anything. It was one of Damen’s favorite suits he’d seen because it did what he wanted outfits to do and that was highlight the person, not the clothing itself.

Damen’s suit was a little more complicated. The first step was a white dress shirt which was just a size too tight, forcing Damen to leave more than a few buttons undone at the top. The second step was the pair of red dress pants, ones that ended right above his ankles and had a perfectly straight crease down the central part of each leg. The second step were the shoes, white and shiny and blessedly left without decoration. The fourth step was a gold and red vest, one that accentuated the width of his shoulders. Lastly, it was finished with a red suit jacket with gold cufflinks identical to the ones Laurent’s uncle was wearing. It did bring out the warmth of his skin.

“I want your suit,” Damen said, pulling and adjusting the lapels.

“Too bad.”

“Alright, everyone!” Charls’ wobbling voice called out. If Damen had thought the man had looked stressed earlier, it was nothing compared to how he looked now. He looked sickly, white with a yellowed hue, red bright eyes, and a face that said it may end up over a trash can at any moment to expel anything and everything in his body. “It is nearing nine which means the doors are opening. Final touches will be made to the models’ faces and hair shortly. Photographers, it’s time to begin settling in where the show will take place, ensuring your positions are secured. We’re counting on you to capture the artistry that are our models, are these pieces of clothing, are the Regency. Everyone else…” he trailed dramatically, “we shall see each other on the other side.”

“That’s my cue,” Nik said. “And yours.”

“Let’s go, bigshot,” Damen started, but just as they began to walk, a hand reached out and clasped around Damen’s wrist.

He didn’t know her by name, but he knew she was a hairstylist, the same one that had been teasing Ancel’s hair up to a high and in a quiet voice she asked, “Can I do your hair? I promise it won’t take long. Your _curls_.”

“They need artfully tousled!” another stylist called over her shoulder.

“Yeah, Damen, get your curls artfully tousled,” Nik said.

“I’ll do it, but just so I stay out of your way since you’ll yell if you start to get all extra stressed.”

Over the girls excited squeals, Nik said, “Sure, that’s why,” and he threw a quick look to where Laurent was still on the stand by the full-length mirrors getting his golden corset pulled tighter and tighter.

The girl who had asked, Tilda, was practically skipping as she followed Damen who sat down in one of the open vanity seats. Without another word, she opened one of the drawers of the vanity they were in front of and pulled out three different bottles, each one gold like the everything else and Damen wondered momentarily if the brand they bought was purposefully gold, if it was coincidence, or, worse, if Etoile took their usual brand and put it into gold cans and jars to fit the aesthetic. He wouldn’t put it past them.

“I’m going to keep it quite simple,” Tilda began, grabbing a spray bottle off of the vanity’s top. “First I’m going to wet your hair, then I’m going to run this mousse through it. After that I’ll apply a heat protectant and blow dry those curls to a voluminous fluff, and finish it with a smoothing oil. Shouldn’t take any longer than ten minutes.”

She kept her hands perfunctory as they carded through his curls, at first turning them into a mess of frizz and uncontrollable poofiness. Then came the spritzes of water, dampening Damen’s hair but not soaking it. Just as she said, she first squirted the mousse into her hand, the smell of it light and the puff of the whiteness growing after exiting the spray can, and she ran it through until it had dissolved and sunken in. Next came the blow dryer that had Damen squinting his eyes, catching only brief glimpses of himself in the mirror. Last was the oil that Tilda ran through the ends of his hair, taming the strands that didn’t want to cooperate with the rest of the hair.

“What do you think?” she asked him and, if he were to tell her the truth, he’d tell her that it didn’t look that much different and that’s why he liked it. All that work seemed to do was tame the curls into a purposefully messed up, bedhead kind of look.

But before he could tell Tilda so, Laurent said, “I think he’s in my seat.”

Damen turned around in the chair. One of his curls fell over his eyes. Laurent was dressed in the outfit he’d walked in yesterday, missing only the crown which couldn’t be put on until they finished his hair. But everything else was perfectly done, from the makeup on his face to the golden shoes on his feet. The corset made him look impossibly small, like Damen could put both his hands on either side of those ribs and his fingers would touch. He looked sharp, untouchable, unobtainable, and like something out of a dream.

“Sorry, Your Majesty,” Damen said, pushing himself up to stand. “But if it means anything, I can’t embarrass you. I told you I’d clean up.”

“You look like one of Etoile,” Laurent said. He sounded displeased still.

“Hair looks good,” Ancel said, strolling by, heels clicking. “So does your chest hair.”

Damen snorted a laugh then tried to cover it with a cough as Laurent’s eyes narrowed. “Right, sorry. Your seat.”

Maybe it was in imitation of the designer that had helped Laurent on the stand, maybe it was the corset that had to be uncomfortable, maybe it was the heels on Laurent’s shoes that had him nervous the other would trip, but Damen held out a hand for Laurent to help him into the seat. Laurent’s eyes narrowed more at the gesture, now directed at Damen’s outstretched hand. Then, of all things he could have done, he took it.

“Don’t you have to find a seat in the back of the show or something?” Laurent asked.

Tilda, holding back an obvious giggle and quite accustomed to Laurent clearly, began to brush out his long blond hair, holding it up so it draped over her arm, a Dali melting clock in person.

Exiting the dressing room, it didn’t take long for Damen to spot Nik. As the lights weren’t dimmed yet, Nik’s black suit stood out greatly where he positioned on the floor near the right side of the stage. In current-expected Nik fashion, he was fiddling with buttons and settings and Damen couldn’t wait for this to be done and over with so Nik would go back to actually enjoying what he did.

“Hey,” Damen said, getting Nik’s hyper-focused attention to switch over for even a minute. “Where am I sitting?”

“Vannes said all of Etoile was sitting together over there.” Nik pointed to the left side of the stage and the group of seats clustered right there, each one with a name tag indescribable from this distance on it.

“I’m not exactly part of Etoile.”

“You’re not exactly not part of it either. I’d check over there first.”

In the second row, right where the Etoile section ended and the rest of the seats began, was Damen’s name in the same fancy script that had adorned the garment bags. _Damianos Vallis._ There were six more rows behind his seat, each one curling around to meet at the other side of the stage, like an elongated horseshoe, and some of the seats were already full, predominantly with journalists who had gotten in with press passes, a few working the old fashioned way with a notebook and pen and a rest working with electronic devices.

Not knowing what else to do, Damen took his seat. He spent the next half hour scrolling through his Instagram, liking comments, liking photos, and even uploading a photo onto his Instagram story of his white shoes and the location tag of ‘Paris, France.’ Then, in an instant, it seemed like everyone invited was arriving at once, voices and excitement filling the air. Every person entering was dressed in something made to be worn during a fashion week. Damen wondered, watching an old woman draped in a green dress and covered with a, what had to be real, fur coat that fell to her ankles, how much money was in this room alone. Around him the seats began to be taken over, conversations occurring in a multitude of languages, many of which Damen knew but couldn’t process when happening all at once.

Two rows behind Damen, a group of guys around his age sat down, one of them, the one with all the attention of the others, was definitely wearing some of Kanye West’s strange shoes, and he looked familiar; it didn’t take Damen too long to recognize where he knew him from. The guy popped up on Damen’s on Instagram ‘explore’ page, a traveller that did inane giveaways like cars and iPhones all for followers. Damen rolled his eyes and focused back to the stage.

He did so with great timing. The rest of Etoile’s members were finding their seats all around him. First he saw Vannes and Herode taking their seats, leaving Charls alone in the back which seemed like a questionable move if he were being honest. Then he saw Nicaise saunter in, his head high, and his eyes never leaving a certain point of the stage as if waiting for someone. There were others Damen recognized, but didn’t know by name, like the set designers and the board of members Laurent’s uncle had mentioned at times, but none of them stood out, except for all the red they were wearing. It must have been coordinated for all of Etoile’s group to wear red.

At long last, the man himself came onto the stage. The lights dimmed, causing a few people in the crowd to squeal as if they had never had lights dim on them before, and the only bright light was a central one on the stage. Laurent’s uncle was a commanding presence, even when alone on a stage. Actually, with the spotlight making the gold of his outfit shimmer, he looked even more commanding. His voice, when it rang out, was strong.

“Welcome, all,” he began, and like with the lights, a few squeals pricked at Damen’s eardrums at the first sound he made. “I thank you all for coming. This is Etoile’s tenth Paris Fashion Week, a milestone in this company’s own life. In those ten years, we have accomplished so much. Our design team is world-renowned for its creativity, for its grace, for, as some of the bolder tabloids have said, its ability to make even the plainest of models look deserving of worship. Speaking of our models, they have also helped mould Etoile into what it has become today. Our models are sought out by all. Did you know that, between all of our models, someone from Etoile has graced Vogue in over seventy countries and have been in a total of three hundred and ten magazines? How extraordinary.” The entire crowd began to clap and cheer and Laurent’s uncle took it all in with grace, the smile on his face real and too humble for a man responsible for all of this. “I don’t want to keep you all as I know you’re here for the outfits and models and not for me talking your day away. Without further adieu, I give you Etoile’s spring line for Paris Fashion Week.”

Before the rest of the lights went out, Damen saw Nik across the way, his camera blocking half of his face. Then —

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the voice started, its pitch low and breathy, its French accented heavily. “The French Revolution began in 1789. We, the people of France, had grown tired of the disparages between our King and ourselves. There was struggle, and pain, but we emerged victorious from the battles and slowly began to make our country what it is today through hard work and dedicated leadership that focused on bettering each citizen. Now, the great places, like Versailles, are for the people, just as they were always by the people. Though we relish each day in our freedom, we keep the beauty of the past alive by embracing it through every step we take in our great country. Today, we bring the beauty and elegance of that timet to you. Please welcome Etoile and its spring line entitled The Regency.”

Around Damen, the crowd was already vibrating with anticipation, oohs and ahhs on the tips of their tongues, so when the first model came from stage left and began an elegant walk, everyone was quick to respond.

“Look at the lining!”

“Oh, he decided to be audacious with the shoulders this year.”

The models weren’t walking straight out. They were elegantly gliding horizontally, showing off the sides of their outfits, before finally walking straight out and taking their time at the end of the catwalk, their faces expressionless, the focus on the clothes. Or intended anyway.

The second model came out, then the third, fourth, fifth, sixth. All of them were honey-eyed, tiny things, three of them so similar in structure and face Damen thought they might be brothers. Behind him, that Instagram guy and his friends were making more comments about the models than the clothes.

“Look at that one.”

“Just how I like them. Small enough that I can just grab them and hold them on my dick.”

“Check out that one’s mouth. Already open.”

“You could just slide right in and —”

The next models began walking, one of them particularly eye-catching but simply because of his makeup that was done to match his clothing pattern directly, two bold lines of red dripping down his face like the two red lines running symmetrically with his nipples. He was followed by a model with pitch black hair and skin just as dark, the gold outfit particularly startling and wonderful on him, and he was followed by a model in a dress with a train that had to be going on two yards in length.

“Darling, you have to buy that for me as a wedding dress!”

“But we’re already married.”

“We can renew our vows then! I have to wear it, I simply have to.”

“Anything for you.”

There were a few more models after that one. All of them were in the colors of white and gold, prominently gold, and though Damen had seen it all yesterday, the opulence of it in this room, on this set, with all these people staring and absorbing everything, felt like so much more than what it was when the lights were on and bright. But then, like when the air took on an unnamable quality before the rain, there was a change.

It came with the slightest of pauses in the walking, in the way the stage stayed empty long enough to have heads craning to see what they were missing. It was exactly what Etoile wanted. The anticipation. Then walked in Aimeric.

The red rejuvenated a life in the crowd, a life that hadn’t truly diminished during the show, yet it grew now to astronomical proportions. Aimeric walked with a face that said someone had once told him he couldn’t do this so he was not set to do it better than anyone before him and the people watching were whispering praise for his sandals, for his outfit, for him. The excitement only grew when Ancel came out. Ancel walked differently than Aimeric. Ancel walked like he was aware of just how attractive he was, and it gave him something in his step, something when his heels hit the ground, that had many people in the crowd trying to keep a handle on themselves.

“He looks like he’d be eager,” one of the guys behind Damen said.

In par with his attitude, Ancel flipped his fiery hair at the end of the catwalk, letting it rain down over his shoulder in a show of its own, and a decent part of the crowd swooned at it, their voices full of nothing but adoration. Before he turned off the stage, Ancel kicked his heel back, as if needing to ensure everyone got one more look at his legs.

Then the lights changed. It was a subtle change, the lights brightening just a little more as if to draw yet more attention to the stage, as if everyone wasn’t already watching, completely enraptured. The murmuring in that instant got louder, like the crowd minutes before a concert began, and Damen realized something in that moment that hadn’t even occurred to him. All of these people were expecting Laurent.

He wasn’t sure why the realization of that made him feel as if he had just stumbled, but it did. Unlike him, unlike Nik, the rest of this crowd, assumingly, was into fashion and knew exactly what Etoile was bringing to the table. And Laurent, Damen did know now, was Etoile’s star was its muse practically.

If Damen had felt as if he had stumbled just moments ago, it was nothing to how he felt when Laurent came out on the stage. Logic told him he had just seen Laurent — in this very outfit and everything — just an hour earlier, yet seeing him on the stage, seeing the crown newly placed atop his head, he was golden, god-like, as if his likeness should be in one of Greece’s ancient temples and not here in Paris being ogled by people that just didn’t get it.

As he had at rehearsal, Laurent walked with his back straight, his core, tight, and it made him powerful. Nicaise’s wishes of Laurent falling flat on his face would go ungiven because Laurent was a professional, was seasoned. The crowd adored him, practically melted, and when Laurent finished his horizontal criss-crossing of the stage and began to walk straight down the remaining catwalk, the lights caught onto his crown, making him glow an ethereal pinkened hue.

“How much would you pay to get those legs wrapped around you, Ian?”

“Bitch like that, he’d only need to see my cock and he’d be the one paying me,” said an Ian. “Goddamn, look at him though.”

“You ever see those porn pics of, like, some chick before and after? You know, like how in the ‘before’ one she looks all cute and like she has her shit together and then in the ‘after’ she looks fucked out, makeup smeared, hair destroyed, mouth all swollen from getting reamed out a couple hundred times? Picture that with him. That crown practically sideways on his head, that gold and red makeup on his face smeared to hell from wacking your dick on his face too many times.” All the other guys made noises of agreement. Damen clenched his fists into his pants to keep from turning around. Instead he focused on the rest of the crowd that he could hear.

“Every year he looks like an angel when he comes on out.”

“What on earth is Etoile going to do if he doesn’t resign? No one else brings everything to life like he does.”

“Art. His existence is art.”

Damen was half-inclined to agree.

At the end of the catwalk, Laurent stood for just a second, and Damen could see Nik for the first time since the lights dimmed, his friend having followed Laurent down the stage. In a matter of only seconds after that though, Laurent turned and exited the way he came, all eyes on the red bottoms of his shoes and the way the corset gave him hips meant to have a hand on them.

When Laurent was gone, the stage stayed empty, the music still playing, the house lights still dimmed, all as if to allow the crowd the time to absorb what they had just seen. Then, like an explosion, all the models were coming back out in a sea of gold and centerpieces of red, and a few of the boys were motioning for Laurent’s uncle who climbed to the stage with an easy smile.

Damen watched the man get doted on by his models, listened to the crowd’s cheering turn into a roar, and watched as the man came to Laurent, held out his hand, and watched as Laurent took it. The two of them walked to the front of the stage, hands clasped, and together they looked like a king and a prince, like a king and a king, like a king and queen.

“Thank you,” Laurent’s uncle called out to the crowd which only seemed to get louder in response. Acknowledging he wouldn’t get another word in, the man gestured instead to the models behind him, then at Laurent, and the sound became near unbearable in volume. Laurent moved behind his uncle, their hands still holding, and motioned for Ancel or Aimeric or someone to grab his other hand, and Aimeric did. Then all the models formed a line down the stage and they all began to bow in thanks. It was only when they had left the stage that the lights returned to normal and the music stopped. Damen and Nik made wide-eyed eye contact across the already-dispersing onlookers.

“Everyone’s practically running out of here,” Damen said to Nik as soon as they were in hearing distance.

“I just asked Jeurre about that. He said that the next show is at the Luxembourg Palace and with the amount of people in the city right now, traffic is a mess and nobody wants to be late.”

Nik looked flushed, the kind of flushed that came after a good workout and it made Damen grin. “How’d it go?”

“I think it went alright.” Damen gave him a look. “I think it went really well. We’re supposed to choose thirty photos to send in sometime over the next two days. I don’t know if I can decide on just thirty.”

“I’ll help.”

“Photographers!” came Charls voice. He sounded infinitely better than he had earlier, as if a well-done show had him feeling like himself again. “Please come to the dressing room. I’d desperately love some photos of everyone now too, there is so much elation!”

“One last call for Etoile,” Nik said.

Talik, who had been on the side of the stage Damen was sitting, motioned for Nik. She was standing with Herode, his orange-red hair and beard a standout with this group. The three of them began to walk toward the dressing room together and just as Damen went to follow, he heard his name.

“Damianos.”

Turning, Damen saw Laurent’s uncle near the seat he had been in before he had joined the models on the stage. Nicaise was with him, holding his hand the same way Laurent had been.

“I’ve only got a moment before I need to leave and attend Halvik’s show at the Luxembourg Palace, but I’d like to speak to you before I go.”

“Of course.”

Nicaise’s fingernails were painted gold. It was all Damen could look at as he approached, their hands so drastically different in size. Peeking out were Nicaise’s golden nails, gold like the jewels in his hair.

“Congratulations on the show,” Damen said before he could say something stupid. “I think it’s all anyone is going to talk about for a while.”

Laurent’s uncle smiled. “Thank you. I’m glad you think so. But do you know what would make it talked about even more? Social media attention placed on it.”

Damen nodded in agreement, dread filling the pit of his stomach.

“Have you thought about our conversation yesterday?”

“I have,” Damen said honestly.

“And?”

“And,” Damen started. He didn’t want to say no. No made it real and as much as he meant the no he couldn’t...commit to that not. Not when he hadn’t explored options. Not when — “And can I think about it a little more? It’s a big change from what I’ve been doing. I don’t want to rush into it.”

Nicaise scoffed.

“I can give you until tomorrow. But I’ll need an answer.” The man paused and perused the room with his eyes. “There’s nothing like this world, Damianos. There aren’t opportunities in abundance to enter it either. Think wisely about it. I’d hate to see a talented young man like yourself waste what you’ve been given.”

“I’ll think on it,” Damen promised, and Nicaise, the devil, scoffed again.

“Good. Now,” Laurent’s uncle held up Nicaise’s hand a little higher, a little tighter, “we’re off to Luxembourg then we’ll be celebrating. I trust you and your photographer friend will be at the party tonight?”

“I believe so,” Damen said, but it sounded more like a question.

As they left, Damen noted that Nicaise’s shoes were almost exact replicas of the shoes Laurent had worn in the show.

Grabbing his phone, Damen took a photo of the empty Etoile stage and posted it to his Instagram story, the same location tag of ‘Paris, France’ on it and simple hashtags: #Etoile and #ParisFashionWeek.

Within an hour, he had almost five thousand messages about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note: this is how i picture damen's hair in this fic --> https://i.pinimg.com/564x/a7/4e/a5/a74ea53dcbd3bb59d921d427a650d47e.jpg
> 
> it's not how i picture it in canon or anything, if that makes any sense, just like how i don't imagine laurent's hair in canon how it is in this fic (which is hella long. very long in this).
> 
> the thing i'm struggling with re: the story is i feel sometimes like laurent is talking too quickly. then i remember we're 60k in and it's okay. and i try to remind myself that laurent doesn't hate damen so venomously in this given that. auguste's death isn't remotely related to damen. idk. ignore my rambling.
> 
> thank you for reading! i promise chapter 10 is already in the works, and now that nik's job is done, etoile is close to becoming a thing of the past.
> 
> also i think i said at the end of chapter 8 that laurent was going to do something this chapter and, um, it didn't happen. it was actually already planned for chapter 10 (i just must be dumb enough to not be able to read my own plan) and even though i was going to put it in here, when this chapter hit almost 12k i decided to wait and go with the plan lol

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading! please let me know what you think! i love this little universe so much and i want it to be the best i can make it. 
> 
> come chat with me over at tumblr where i am the most! @ marrieddorks
> 
> and if you're interested in my 'inspo' for this fic, you can look at: marrieddorks.tumblr.com/tagged/mannequin-gallery-%27verse


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